This Moss Uses Quartz as a
Parasol
In the Mojave Desert, a translucent crystal offers bryophytes
much-needed respite from the heat of the sun.
NEW YORK TIMES
By Sabrina Imbler
July 29, 2020
To humans, a
desert oasis may conjure an image of a blue pool encircled by a coronet of palm
trees. But to certain mosses, an oasis takes the form of a pebble of milky
quartz. The cloudy crystal dilutes the sun’s piercing ultraviolet rays and, in
the dry desert heat, traps moisture beneath it, creating a microclimate perfect
for a moss.
Kirsten
Fisher, a biologist at California State University, Los Angeles, first spotted
these miniature oases in 2014, somewhere off a highway in the western Mojave
Desert in Wrightwood, Calif. She was studying the sex life of the moss
Syntrichia caninervis, and progress was slow....
