Looks lettuce shaped. Dropped from the tops of trees (originally there to fix nitrogen for the trees). Provides important nutrients to the forest floor.
Forest floor at valley bottom
This was right after a big rain, it was straight, not curled at all. Growing on a steep slope.
It grows so much better in the Olympics than it does near the city.
Having to kneel down for these tiny mosses causes me to take blurry photos. There are two mosses in the photo, the other being the stair step moss to the bottom right hand corner.
On a log near the trail, this grows nice a big here.
In moss heaven here.
This moss was covered with snow and my camera lens was covered with water. It was on of those very cold hikes where the snow is falling and melting at the same time and nothing can stay dry or warm.
Hylocomium splendens, commonly known as Glittering Wood-moss, Stair-step Moss and Mountain Fern Moss, is a perennial clonal moss with a widespread distribution in Northern Hemisphere boreal forests. It is commonly found in Europe, Russia, Alaska and Canada, where it is often the most abundant moss species. It also grows in the Arctic tundra and further south at higher elevations in, for example, northern California, western Sichuan, East Africa, Australia, New Zealand and the West Indies. In...
