Page 11 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #02

A
R
Y
WILD FEBRUARY
FEBR
U
The sublime glow of
‘goblin’s gold’ amazed
Hidden and continues to
our ancestors
delight us today.

BRITAA N

t’s there and then gone,
a momentary twinkling in
Ithe gloaming. As you peer
into a deep crevice between
the rocks, a strange golden-
green luminescence seems to
emanate from the darkness. NICK
Its form is difficult to make
sense of: tiny grains of light BAKER
like a distant city. You reach in, REVEALS A
fingers groping for the treasure,
but when you bring it out into FASCINATING
daylight you’re left with nothing WORLD OF robust, light-hungry mosses of
has
but a smear of common dirt. WILDLIFE THAT the outside world. Instead it has
it
outside
the
Instead
world.
Were you tricked by the light? found a niche betwixt daylight fu
furthest from the light, is a
No: look close at what remains WE OFTEN and dark, becoming supremely c luster of chloroplasts.
on your fingers and you’ll see OVERLOOK. adapted to harnessing the In the gloom, there is barely
a tangle of green shreds. What liminal illumination of deep a a flicker of sunlight; most of the

un’s energy is filtered out by
you’ve just experienced is more crevices, caves and burrows. su
magical than even the existence GOBLIN’S GOLD To understand how this dull th
he world above. But here is the
of fairies. You’ve met one of smudge of soil on your fingertip cl lever bit. Schistostega doesn’t
the most unusual mosses in plays such tricks with the light, ask for much: this faint glimmer
a
the world: Schistostega penata, you need to lean in even closer. is s enough. Each large, clear cell
also known as goblin’s gold, The moss comprises two distinct a acts like a lens, focusing the
meagre light hitting it from the
dragon’s gold or rabbit’s candle. structures. When the spore, m
It’s responsible for many fairy on finding the perfect v very specific angle of the crevice’s
tales concerning pixies and DID YO U combination of e ntrance onto its cluster of
hloroplasts. One name for the
mischievous magical little folk. KNOW ? moisture and ch
Apparently, goblin’s gold Goblin’s gold is possibly luminosity, moss was ‘emerald light bender’.
m
is quite scarce, though that the only moss to have a germinates it forms The reflective function is
may simply be a product of shrine dedicated to it – a filamentous mat si imilar to that performed by the
under-recording. Few of us find Hikarigoke Cave on of cells called a ta apetum in the eyes of nocturnal
ourselves peering into the sort Hokkaido, Japan. protonema. From this mammals. It is so directional
m
of eerie damp, dark recesses emanates an arched, th
hat the ‘sparkle’ of reflected
that this remarkable plant calls fern-like frond, which is li ight coming back at your own
home. In fact, it is so specialised the reproductive structure. ey yes can only be registered
that it cannot compete with the Eventually it will form the stalks from the very direction of the
fr
and capsules that produce the in
ncidental light. This is why
he ‘gold’ (the green pigment
next batch of spores. th
o
ANCIENT MYSTERY of the chlorophyll) vanishes in
GLIMMER OF LIGHT bright multidirectional daylight.
b
Did warriors use goblin’s gold moss to gain supernatural power?
Although the leafier parts It t’s also why if you lean in too
Illustrations by Peter David Scott/The Art Agency spear-head from the late e Bronze of this m ported to Norfolk? that holds the secret to the th Small wonder that this lowly
catch the eye, it is the less
So how did it get there? Perhaps
lose to investigate it in situ, you
Remains of Schistostega have
did
cl
nevitably block the light from
in
remarkable-looking protonema
ac
o
ac
e
s
s
e
the tr
been found in the shaft hole of a
the traces of moss are the result
the tr
he one direction the moss has
om the lat
of a cache of spear-
o o
onz
Br
g
grown to operate with.
ethereal glow. Through a
h
Age found at Aylsham sham in North
heads being stored
he
is is miles from
Norfolk. Thihis is
microscope, you’ll see it
in a
a cave before being
ittle moss seemed to be the stuff
li
any known lolocation with
consists of hundreds of large
transp
o
of mystery and magic.
haps the ‘green fire e’
cells arranged in a single layer,
Or perh
the acidic be edrock
o
each transparent bauble the
oss was well known
conditions suuitable
for the growth h
g the copper
to those mining
NICK BAKER
Nestled in the narrow end,
of this moss.
aking the weapons s.
mak
is
February 2018 required for mak shape of an upside-down pear. N s a naturalist, author and TV presenter. 11
BBC Wildlife