Rare moss discovery in Alaska

This video from Alaska is about Wrangell-St. Elias National Park.

Botanists find rare moss in Alaska’s Wrangell-St. Elias National Park

Yereth Rosen

September 22, 2014

A rare type of moss never before spotted on U.S. soil has been discovered growing in Alaska’s Wrangell-Elias National Park, scientists reported in a study published in the journal Evansia.

A routine plant survey, part of a National Park Service program intended to create baseline data about the vegetation in three Interior Alaska national parks, turned up a moss of the species Trematodon laetevirens, the scientists report. That species, so obscure there is no common name, has been found in only one other North American site — in Canada’s Yukon Territory — and is also known to grow in Greenland and Scandinavia, according to the scientists.

The moss was found in a boulder field near the upper reaches of Trail Creek, a tributary of the Nabesna River, according to the study.

The discovery was made during a multiyear vegetation survey in which species growing in various study plots were cataloged, said Sarah Stehn, a Denali National Park botanist who was part of the team that found the Trematodon laetevirens.

“We weren’t looking for these guys at all, beyond the fact that we were recording all the bryophyte species that were in our monitoring plots,” said Stehn, the study’s lead author.

Trematodon laetevirens is distinguished by its long bristle, its straight, smooth-necked capsule and its long, narrow leaves, according to the study. Stehn described it as “a small green moss that grows upright in a little tuft.” The team found it growing in rock crevices, she said.