We visited family in eastern Nebraska this weekend. My in-laws have an oak woodland that I’ve become familiar with over the years, and I was glad to have a little time to wander through it. Because of the cool spring, I was curious to see if anything had started blooming. Trout lilies, dutchman’s breeches, violets, and other wildflowers were up and growing, but the only flowers I found weren’t really flowers – they were moss sporophytes …and even they were few and far between.
This patch of moss was one of the few patches in “bloom” this weekend in an oak woodland south of Omaha, Nebraska.
By mid-April in most years, I would have expected to see violets in bloom, and would have had a decent shot at seeing flowers on trout lilies and woodland phlox as well. Not this year. Instead, I gave up on flowers and spent some fruitless time trying to find one of the chorus frogs that were calling down by the creek. Having failed at that, I went back up the hill and looked more closely at the moss. Why fight it?
A close-up of moss sporophytes. Sarpy County, Nebraska.
Ironically, the most colorful things I found in the woods weren’t plants, but invertebrates. I saw several tiny red mites crawling around in the leaf litter – including the one below, which contrasted nicely with the lush green moss it was exploring.
A tiny red mite, about 2mm long. Photographed with a Nikon 105mm lens and extension tubes on a Nikon D300s camera, assisted by two small flash units.
Spring flowers will come eventually. In the meantime, the delayed growth does have its advantages. In both woodlands and prairies, soil moisture is still low from last season’s drought. The longer it takes for plants to start using water, the more moisture will be left for summer wildflowers. Personally, I’m in no big rush.
The Prairie Ecologist 