Schistostega has a rare maritime distribution and is indigenous to types of habitats composed of sandstone and limestone. It is most commonly found in caves, but also under old barns and on upturned roots. Though rather rare it is fairly widely distributed throughout parts of Europe, Japan, British Columbia to Washington and Alberta; scattered from Minnesota and Wisconsin to Newfoundland and Rhode Island. It is also found right here in beautiful Athens, OH.

The family Schistostegaceae, is composed of only one genus, Schistostega and a single species: Schistostega pennata. It goes by such common names as: Luminous moss, Cave moss and Goblin Gold. The plant itself is characterized by its prevalent or loosely tufted, leaf structure leading into a radiculose base and ranging in height from 4-7 mm. Schistotega is dimorphous, consisting of both sterile and fertile plant types. The sterile plant has an erect-flexuose stem, which is pinnately foliate. Its leaves are distichous complanate, oblong, ecostate and having a length of 0.7 - 1.2 mm, it is bordered by smooth, thin-walled, laxly oblong-rhomboidal cells. The fertile plant, consisting of both a male and female, is mixed in amongst the sterile plants and recognized by its more slender appearance and having smaller erect-spreading leaves inserted all around the stem in a crowded tuft at its tip. The plant is often described as dioecious, but is actually monoecious, both male and female organs are produced on stems from the same protonema. A form of asexual reproduction is obclavate smooth 3-4 celled gemmae, tapering to a distal acumen, produced on the protonema. Sexual reproduction is through spherical, smooth, subglobose spores, which are yellow to green in color. The plant contains no costae, stomata, annuli or peristomes. It has a planoconvex operculum and a small calyptra, conic-mitrate.

These green moss plants grow from a threadlike, luminous, protonema. From the threads arise numerous thin structures containing groups of vesiculose, spherical cells in conidia-like chains. Each of the cells contains chlorophyll-granules that are grouped in one plane on the plant. Each plant is at a right angle to the light rays, which filter into the cave. The chlorophyll granules appear as a green spot on the cells facing the dark area of the cave. When light enters the cave and falls upon the plant the rays are refracted to form a cone of light, when these refracted rays hit the green spot part is partially absorbed and the rest is reflected producing a luminous appearance.

Literature Cited

Crum, Howard. 1983. Mosses of the Great Lakes. University of Michigan Herbarium. Ann Arbor, Michigan. 417 pp.

Written by Adam Boggs