We stopped to look at the complex thalloid liverworts around the edges of this photo, and were then taken aback by these bizarre little things. I had no clue what they were, but now that I've done a little searching, I believe they're simple liverworts in the genus Fossombronia, and the lollipop-like structures are the sporophytes. One of the shots below shows the stem and leaf structure of the vegetative body, and I think you can see the "conspicuous cup-like pseudoperianth around each sporophyte" mentioned in Doyle & Stotler (2006) in the lower portions of this image.

There are apparently two species in CA, F. pusila and F. longiseta, but they can only be reliably distinguished by microscopic characters of the spores.