Stemonitis sp - detail of capillitium

Stemonitis sp - detail of capillitium

The rounded yellowish objects are spores. Just a small part of the central columella is visible at top right. Most of the spores have already been dispersed in this example.

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Uploaded on Feb 16, 2012

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Stemonitis sp  - part of capillitium showing central columella

Stemonitis sp - part of capillitium showing central columella

The capillitium is a network of fine filments that is present in many, but not all, slime mould sporangia. It appears to be formed by the cytoplasm left over when the spores round off and form a cell wall. In most cases, this structure probably helps to control spore release, gradually liberating the spores as it is diistorted by the wind [reminiscent of the elaters in some hepatic sporangia, although phylogenetically there's only a very distant relatiionship betwen them].

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Uploaded on Feb 16, 2012

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Plagiomnium sp  - detail of peristome

Plagiomnium sp - detail of peristome

This is just an enlarged version of part of a previous image, to show more of the finer details in the outer and inner peristomes. Each outer tooth is formed from the cell walls of two rows of cells. The end walls of these two rows form the zigzag line in the middle of each tooth. The whole thing is quite a complex structure [see this page for more information]
I tried using a sharpening software on this image, but I'm not entirely sure whether the result is really a sharpened image or whether this is now full of artifacts caused by the sharpening procedure. I'm not convinced that it really is worthwhile.

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Uploaded on Feb 15, 2012

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Cambessedesia hilariana 2

Cambessedesia hilariana 2

wider view showing rest of plant for the flowers shown in a previous image. The individual shown here is about 40 cm high

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Uploaded on Feb 15, 2012

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Cambessedesia espora

Cambessedesia espora

This species of Cambessedesia has uniformly yellow flowers. Although it's less spectacular than C. hilariana, it's still a very attractive species. As far as I'm aware, cultivation of species of this genus is difficult, and they are not widely available

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Uploaded on Feb 15, 2012

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