Brilliant Bryophytes | Hornworts, Liverworts, Mosses | Gardening Australia

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We meet Dr Pina Milne, a botanist who takes us into the fascinating, tiny and forgotten world of “bryophytes”; plants like mosses, liverworts and hornworts

“Bryophytes” is the word used to describe the group of plants that includes mosses, hornworts and liverworts. These oft-overlooked plants are so important in ecosystems, starting soil formation on barren terrain, maintaining soil moisture, and recycling nutrients in forest vegetation as it breaks down. Pina says they make great invertebrate habitat, and that’s why you’ll often find torn bryophytes “on the edge of walking tracks, it’s birds looking for insects to eat because they know it’s a rich resource”.

These plants are the first step in plants emerging out of the primordial soup millions of years ago, from water onto land, and have barely changed since then. They’re the amphibians of vegetation; completely dependent on water to reproduce. They share various features with their green algae ancestors. They don’t have flowers or even seeds, instead reproducing via spores that need water to move and germinate. Australia has over 2000 species of bryophytes that occupy a diverse range of habitats, everything from lush rainforest to dry soil crusts in the desert. They can also be incredibly slow growing and can be hundreds of years old.

Pina works at the herbarium at the RBG Victoria and has a soft spot for bryophytes. She did her PhD on them, describing a new species growing in a highly saline environment (“they’re very adaptable… you can find them in the arctic and in deserts”). A good example of the varied growing conditions bryophytes can persist in is on the oaks in the garden.

“They’re hidden in plain view”. “No one pays them attention. They’re quite small in size, and that’s the reason people forget about them. Even with fungi people notice them because they’re bright and colourful…bryophytes don’t do that”.

Pina and Millie look at a bryophyte growing on the top of a pot on the nursery, and some forming on rocks. Bryophytes will often pop up in the top of pots, thriving with the extra moisture and water from reaching the plant. This bryophyte has evolved small cups (called gemma) to reproduce asexually. These cups contain small discs of reproductive tissue, that can directly grow new bryophytes. “As water pounds into these cups from raindrops or irrigation, it flicks out and can form a new liverwort”.

Pina says identifying bryophytes often needs a microscope “and a compound one, not just a dissecting microscope”. Differences can be as minute and intricate as the number of hairs on fruiting bodies. “After a while you start to get your eye in”.

Pina says she’d like to see more people interested in bryophytes. “There’s a very small number of people working on it in Australia…as these people retire, they’re not being replaced by new young people coming through”. “They’re an important part of our flora and deserve to be studied and recognised”. Bryophytes are the miniature underpinnings of entire ecosystems, and the very beginnings of all terrestrial plant life as we know it. They may be tiny, but they offer a fascinating world for anyone who wants to look a little closer.

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