A friend just got back from the Yukon with photos of this incredible plant. We haven't been able to identify it, thought perhaps you might be able to help. I've been told the flowers are the size of a dime, or smaller.
The photographs are very well done. Someone there, has real talent. The plants are amazing. Literally, amazing. The other plant life captured in the shots are also breathtaking. This is one of the most beautiful diversity of habitat plant life in combination, I have ever seen. Not yet lost in this world. Thank you for sharing this.
I agree - awesome photos. Your friend, clearly a skillful photographer, should really be credited by name. I was surprised to find a Memorial University of Newfoundland page with a photo indicating the size of these - someone holding a bunch of them on moose dung (common name is yellow moosedung moss). That's not what I expected at all, even though you said the flowers were the size of a dime - I wonder if the size varies much, or they really are all only a few inches high. The page is a brief description of field work on odour chemistry involving this and similar mosses.
He should submit that last photo to the UBCBG Botany Photo of the Day group. On flickr, so I can make it a favourite.
I found that the tops on some of the plants are referenced to as fruits on some sites. Some mosses are edible. Like mushroom there are spores with the species we have all been looking at today. So I was wondering, is this one edible? Poisonous? Please tell your friend Nino how impressed everyone has been with the photo's. Thanks again.
Thank you Michael F. I looked it up with your helpful answer and found the plant in question (seemed to be in a painting) with your info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/moss
Thank you, everyone, for your helpful references. I've learned so much in this process! The painting in the link you offered, Lynne, is stunning . . . also the others in Ernst Haeckel's book (sorry I don't know how to put in the hyperlink). I've just added it: it appears over my flickr name, but I've credited Nino in the details.
