In chilly weather, I became a botanist for the evening and visited the wild forest six minutes away from Hammond Pond. The ground was wet and the air was humid. The plants finally got a break from the unforgiving Sun's heat after last week.
I figured this nature walk would be relatively easy. After all, I was looking for the four main types of land plants, not the entirety of the archaeplastida clade.
The only group that gave me a hard time was the polypodiopsida or plants that are vascular but seedless.
My first plant was a popular bryophyta: the moss. Although leaves carpeted the forest floor, I could see mosses everywhere. So I mentally crossed off nonvascular plants from my list. Next, was an evergreen tree. These gymnosperms are hard to miss during the fall. The angiosperms were also easy to spot. The one I found bore tiny red fruit.
Finally, I found ferns. As I should have guessed while looking for the seedless plants, they were beside a tiny stream of water and shared space with some mushrooms and mosses.
On my way back, I took some pictures of some more mosses.
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