# Does anyone know where flame moss comes from?



## AteItOffTheFloor (Oct 8, 2014)

I was exploring some streams today and saw a drain wall covered with what looked like it. A search for flame moss's origins have tunred a blank. 

Do you know whether it's supposed to be from Asia? Specifically Malaysia.


----------



## miremonster (Mar 26, 2006)

That sounds exciting. Lacking information about the origin of the flame moss was one of the reasons why Prof. B.C. Tan (Singapore) could only determine the genus, Taxiphyllum, but not the species.

You could send a sample of the drain wall moss to the prof, together with information about the location, and additionally try to cultivate it together with the known Flame moss to check if they look identical in the long term.
http://137.132.71.21/dna/people/details/28


----------



## AteItOffTheFloor (Oct 8, 2014)

How do I get in touch with him? 

He must think I sound silly lmao.


----------



## miremonster (Mar 26, 2006)

Not at all, the prof has already checked a lot of aquarium mosses from hobbyists, and could clear up a lot, see e.g. this paper: http://sea.nus.edu.sg/aquatic-mosses.pdf and the moss ID threads on killies.com / aquaticquotient.com.
I can't find his email address at the moment, but you could ask e.g. StrungOut who has already sent him specimens: http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/...st-i-received-mosses-poland-2.html#post724874

And samples of naturally occurring mosses (and plants in general) with specification of the location are especially valuable for the botanists, that's the primary source for information about the several species!


----------



## AteItOffTheFloor (Oct 8, 2014)

I'll have to go back to collect and photograph the location first 

It's just odd that it would sort of just 'appear' in the hobby and no one knew where it came from. Not something this nice anyways. Or maybe they're just trying to keep it a secret.


----------



## miremonster (Mar 26, 2006)

AteItOffTheFloor said:


> It's just odd that it would sort of just 'appear' in the hobby and no one knew where it came from. Not something this nice anyways. Or maybe they're just trying to keep it a secret.


Yes, that's a general problem with many new plant species in the trade and hobby... It's in contrast to scientific collectors who always make herbarium specimens and document the locality and habitat, but mostly don't cultivate the stuff. 
Maybe there are often reasons to keep the location secret, but I guess that mostly simply no need is seen to pass on or publish such information. Or it's published somewhere, but not in a world language.


----------



## Tugg (Jul 28, 2013)

Couldnt it also be some waist from some hobbiest? I would think if it was in fact flame moss, it probably got their due to humans not nature. Plenty of aquarium plants have invaded before.

Just an FYI, but a similar thing happened with the Marbled Crayfish. My understanding is it just showed up in some German petstore. Since the species has no males and theyre all clones, science can't ID the species.


----------



## miremonster (Mar 26, 2006)

Tugg said:


> Couldnt it also be some waist from some hobbiest? I would think if it was in fact flame moss, it probably got their due to humans not nature. Plenty of aquarium plants have invaded before.


 If so, it would be interesting if it does establish and spread there. As the research area of Prof. Tan are the mosses of Malesia (Malaysia, Indonesia and so on) and East Asia, he could surely detect if it's introduced or native.


Tugg said:


> Just an FYI, but a similar thing happened with the Marbled Crayfish. My understanding is it just showed up in some German petstore. Since the species has no males and theyre all clones, science can't ID the species.


 Martin & al. 2010 mean that the "Marmorkrebs" is a parthenogenetic form of the slough crayfish, Procambarus fallax, and have named the beast P. fallax f. virginalis: 
http://dpc.uba.uva.nl/cgi/t/text/get-pdf?c=ctz;idno=7903a03
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmorkrebs
But they also couldn't find out the exact origin of that particular form.


----------



## illustrator (Jul 18, 2010)

Even though I find it rather frustrating, it is to me also understandable that we don't know the origin of many plants. Worldwide there are many aquarists who every now and then put some plant in their aquarium "to try". Most tries fail, but some succeed. Then someone gives some plants to a friend and so on. Rather many people also take plants as souvenir from their travels (with the risk to spread weeds and plant-diseases over the world), which are then again given on from one person to the next. By the time it gets into the hands of someone who actually writes an article about it, it can be long forgotten who obtained the first plants from nature.


----------



## miremonster (Mar 26, 2006)

Well described!
Another issue that I see: many mosses, especially the Taxiphyllum and Vesicularia stuff, are easily confused, by far not as distinctive as the Flame. Even if there are claims where an aquarium moss was collected, it may be unsure if the mosses floating around with the same label are still the same as the originally collected one. It's not verifiable, as making of herbarium specimens is unusual in the hobby and commerce.
Example: According to Tropica, their "Vesicularia dubyana 'Christmas'" comes from Brazil and is known in Japan as "Amazonia willow moss". (btw., neither V. dubyana nor V. montagnei are native of the Americas where, nevertheless, Vesicularias occur.) I still haven't had time to take a closer look, but it seems to me that they have 2 different "Christmas", the one finer, the other coarser with more roundish leaves and maybe true montagnei.


----------



## aquariumlover10 (Oct 15, 2014)

Post some pics when you can.


----------



## AteItOffTheFloor (Oct 8, 2014)

Will do. I'm hoping to go back to the site tomorrow.


----------



## aquariumlover10 (Oct 15, 2014)

Ok, also a couple pics or a vid of the actual area/water body will help.


----------



## illustrator (Jul 18, 2010)

With moss it very often happens that someone grows more than one species in an aquarium. Very easily a small piece of one species can get between another species and when you give a piece of moss (with a name) to someone else, it can then be "contaminated" with the other species. In another aquarium the "contamination piece" might overgrow the original species (mosses grow faster or less fast in different circumstances but each species reacts a bit different so what grows fast in one aquarium might be slow in another and vice versa). You can see how easily this can lead to some mix-ups.


----------



## AteItOffTheFloor (Oct 8, 2014)

Understood. Just don't judge me when you find out where I've been 

Illustrator, I admit, I do have some moss growing in my tub, also harvested from the wild. Its not java moss, but its growing very similarly to it. Its just a bit stiffer than the java I know and love. Got it from a nursery's drain wall. They thought I was crazy, but they let me take a cupful for free.

This suspected flame moss isn't as long as the one's I've seen in aquascapes, but I understand mosses sometimes grow shorter when emersed?

But as for contamination, there's such a big difference between the moss I already have and flame moss that I'm sure I would spot any mix ups. 

UNLESS I INTENTIONALLY DO IT


----------



## aquariumlover10 (Oct 15, 2014)

Haha, ok, hey I put a crayfish in my tank, but, it was dropped by a bird, missing 3 legs, and had eggs!! And it survived eggs hatched and it survived crawling out of the tank and being on the floor for 7 hours! I had to put in a pond because it the everything 
The moss I find on the ground and growing up the sides of houses is short and thick, whenits really moist it is fluffier and bigger, when fully submersed it is growing up and out, so yeah I think it could be, and java moss can grow up the banks of lakes, or up remersed rocks/wood, and etc.


----------



## miremonster (Mar 26, 2006)

Yes, many mosses change their habit considerably depending on growth conditions - lighting, nutrient and CO2 supply, emersed/submerged etc. It may well be that submerged grown pieces of mosses which normally grow terrestrial are not determinable for the experts (bryologists), because the microscopical features, crucial for ID, are changed, resp. the submerged habit isn't described in scientific literature.

For IDing moss from outdoors, it's best to send a sample collected in the place where it grows wild, not yet grown submerged in the tank.

As for mix-up, even moss growing outdoors may be a mix of different but similarly looking species.

"Java moss": may be considered trivial, but actually interesting. The common "Java moss" widespread in the aquarium hobby, mostly called Vesicularia dubyana, was IDed as Taxiphyllum barbieri. But T. barbieri is known to the science as native to Vietnam, not other countries. So every aquatic moss from outdoors, considered to be "Java moss", is noteworthy.
(True V. dubyana that's now called "Singapore moss" in the hobby is widespread in tropical Asia, according to literature. The original "Java moss", cultivated in Europe first, many decades ago, was indeed V. dubyana, likely from Java)


----------



## AteItOffTheFloor (Oct 8, 2014)

I've reached near the place, but its night time now. Will go tomorrow. 

Mire, a moss expert has perhaps the coolest title ever. IT sounds like someone who studies dinosaurs lmao.

And thanks for your info on java moss. If I ever get the chance to go to the nursery again I'll snap pics of that too.

It certainly grows differently underwater. In the drain there, it was almost like christmas moss, with these red antennae(?) with green spots at its tip. Now its growing much more haphazardly and every which way.


----------



## BruceF (Aug 5, 2011)

Mosses are one confusing subject.

http://worldofmosses.com/ggom/picggomAnatomy.jpg

Does anybody know how long it would take to determine the viability of a moss when submerged?


----------



## miremonster (Mar 26, 2006)

I'd have thought that bryologists are commonly regarded as rather nerdy than cool 

I think even a scrap of that moss in the drain of the nursery would be interesting for the experts. Every record is a jigsaw piece for the knowledge about the different species.

Red antennae with green spots at the tips: that are the sporophytes = sporogons of the moss. They look quite uniform in many different moss species. Emersed Vesicularia species often have sporogons, as well as mosses from other genera. I remember that my Vesicularia dubyana years ago in my tank also developed sporogons under water.
Compare: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moss#mediaviewer/File:Winter_moss.jpg


----------



## AteItOffTheFloor (Oct 8, 2014)

What they do is extremely nerdy, but the name 'bryologist' is extremely cool.

Put it this way; say you're a bryologist and everyone will ask you what exactly you do. Explain to them that you dig thru drains for moss to study and they quietly back away 

As always, thank you for teaching me something new. Sporogon. 

Those pictures are beautiful! 

Quick question. You know how duckweed can sometimes for rather long sticky roots? HAve you ever tried growing mosses in said root tangle?


----------



## AteItOffTheFloor (Oct 8, 2014)

Habitat pics are in!!!

There were 2 small dogs(with collars) that were growling near me as I took these. It was next to some sort of farm, so I guess they were guards. I didn't hang around.










It fed into this steam/ditch thing that went on for quite a ways.









I would have followed it, but...dogs.

Gussing this is fissidens?









This is the stuff that intrigued me. 


















Small, and pointing outwards.










It doesn't look like it in the pics, but that entire surface is wet, with constantly running water.

Your thoughts? Please don;t tell me its just mini fisidens.


----------



## AteItOffTheFloor (Oct 8, 2014)

Oh, and here's the moss I collected, along with the staghorn/cynobacteria that came along with it. I'm not to fussy. The algae looks cool and helps with keeping water clean.










It grows in pretty much every way - but some parts are rather orderly. Not for aquascapes for sure.


----------



## miremonster (Mar 26, 2006)

AteItOffTheFloor said:


> Put it this way; say you're a bryologist and everyone will ask you what exactly you do. Explain to them that you dig thru drains for moss to study and they quietly back away


 :lol:

Thx for the pics!

IMO none of them is a Fissidens. All Fissidens species have a uniform structure: feather-like, all leaves strongly in one plane, in 2 rows along the stem. See http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/get_moss_gk.pl?genus=Fissidens
The mosses #1 & #2 in your photos have the leaves densely arranged around the stem. Very many moss species and genera have that habit, especially the typical upright, rather short, cushion-forming mosses.

#2 doesn't look like flame moss to me. The Taxiphyllum sp. "Flame" has flattened but upright stems, leaves almost in 2 rows, but the stem is spirally twisted. Moss #2 has apparently no flattened stems, the leaves are dispersed around the stem, again.
I believe it _might_ be Philonotis hastata, a common tropical moss in wet places. Light green, soft, water-repellent, sometimes floating on the water surface. Often introduced in greenhouses of botanical gardens and water plant nurseries in Europe. The Prof. could check that.
http://sinu.science.nus.edu.sg/picture/Philonotis_hastata_1.jpg
http://sinu.science.nus.edu.sg/species.php?genus=Philonotis&species=hastata&rank=0&infraspecific=

#3: maybe a Vesicularia, but also anything else. Needs to be checked with microscope (by the prof) for ID. Do you have a photo of the submerged habit in the tank?


----------



## aquariumlover10 (Oct 15, 2014)

Qthe pics of moss on wallnlook like some type of sphagnum or common green carpet moss.


----------



## AteItOffTheFloor (Oct 8, 2014)

miremonster said:


> :lol:
> 
> Thx for the pics!
> 
> ...


Sorry for bringing everyone with me on a wild goose chase. It looks a lot like Philonotis hastata. I must say, for an aquatic plant forum, you guys are amazingly well versed on non native _and_ non aquatic plants. Hats off.

About #3, that is its submerged growth habit. It grew a lot neater in the nurseries drain, to the point that it looked a lot like christmas moss. But after being submerged its begun to grow in much more random, snakey ways. I don't tie it to anything - its free floating and some bits do attach to the soil at the bottom, but many pieces simply drift around encased in algae.

Does tying/not tying it down affect its growth pattern?


----------



## AteItOffTheFloor (Oct 8, 2014)

aquariumlover10 said:


> Qthe pics of moss on wallnlook like some type of sphagnum or common green carpet moss.


If it is sphagnum, it gets respect from me. Apparently it's capable of holding immense quantities of water and can help spread the size of swamps.

I remember exploring such a swamp once. These type of places are extremely dangerous to go at alone because of how deep the silt can be. The water is very shallow, so theres not much buoyancy going on, of course you can't sink completely, but you can easily get stuck. The fauna can be amazing, though. In this case, I was hunting channa lucius.

I took a tentative step, and from being in mud ankle deep immediately sank into some sort of pit that reached just below my hips. I had to lie on my back in the shallows to try to get my legs out. Only took about 10 minutes, but I sure sweated a lot ,especially from my eyes.


----------



## miremonster (Mar 26, 2006)

Sphagnum species have an unmistakable habit, with a thick head and hanging branches along the stem, and are quite big, mostly more than 1 cm wide and often many cm long. I assume that the moss #2 is rather tiny, less than 2 mm or so wide (as I know the P. hastata).
I'd always thought that Sphagnums occur only in colder regions, but I've read that there are also some in tropical lowlands, in acidic, nutrient-poor places. Some Sphagnums occur partly or fully submerged, as S. cuspidatum, it might be interesting to test their aquarium suitability.
Also the bogs here in temperate Europe are fascinating biotopes, but mostly endangered and rare. (and unfortunately without spectacular beasts like Channas  )



AteItOffTheFloor said:


> Does tying/not tying it down affect its growth pattern?


 I think so. I've noticed that aquarium mosses generally develop more beautiful when they are attached. 
If your moss is Vesicularia dubyana: I've had that years ago, it looked nice, like that in the pic of Loh K. L.: http://www.flowgrow.de/db/images/wasserpflanzen/detail/vesicularia-dubyana-4f7a02539f29e.jpg


----------



## AteItOffTheFloor (Oct 8, 2014)

I'll clear the algae off some and tie it to some wood. My moss looks like it has the potential to grow that nice.

And nowadays I've learnt to leave my bollocks at home, and carry a fanny pack with my phone in it every time I go to swamps and streams. 

I googled sphagnum moss in aquaria soon after replying to aquariumlover. Didn't get much. But if it can be found growing submerged, wouldn't it be safe to say it can grow in tanks?


----------



## miremonster (Mar 26, 2006)

AteItOffTheFloor said:


> But if it can be found growing submerged, wouldn't it be safe to say it can grow in tanks?


 I'm not sure, they occur under rather extreme conditions - very soft, acidic -, but in tanks with such water chemistry - maybe. There are true aquatic but very difficult plants like e.g. Eriocaulon setaceum, I could imagine that one who manages to grow them also would be successful with peat mosses.


----------



## AteItOffTheFloor (Oct 8, 2014)

miremonster said:


> I'm not sure, they occur under rather extreme conditions - very soft, acidic -, but in tanks with such water chemistry - maybe. There are true aquatic but very difficult plants like e.g. Eriocaulon setaceum, I could imagine that one who manages to grow them also would be successful with peat mosses.


Surely some dead peat moss would soften the water making it suitable for live peat moss lmao.

Its just like they say, you need peat moss to make peat moss.


----------



## miremonster (Mar 26, 2006)

Yes, there are bog gardens resp. outdoor containers with thriving Sphagnum, maybe a kind of indoor bog tank with living Sphagnum would work as well.
If one doesn't want to see peat / dead Sphagnum in the tank, perhaps also some types of nutrient-poor aquasoil may provide the right conditions.

That one looked quite nice: http://www.my-mac.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=7917&start=60
but died off in the tank. The rock in the background might be calcareous stuff, seiryu or so.


----------

