Minions

Day 240: Some things defy description, and it's my opinion that the spore capsules of many of the liverworts fall within the criteria for "weird." Asterella gracilis (shown here with the fleshy leaves of a sedum) is a good example. When I first encountered these, I shipped off a sample to a liverwort expert in Oregon for identification, although in the interim, Team Biota applied their own common name to the species: Minions.  If you've seen the movies, the derivation should be obvious. Since then, I've learned more about liverworts and have come to regard them with almost as much curiosity as I reserve for slime molds. They are nonvascular, i.e., they lack the vessels which in vascular plants transport water and nutrients. Consequently, they are generally rather small. However, like certain lichens and those creepy, creeping Protists, they are eminently suited to be the pioneers in ecologies which would be inhospitable for other plant types. Most liverworts grow in damp areas because of their inability to retain moisture in their cells.