> I have another question, regarding moss. I went to a garden centre
> and asked what exactly sphagnum moss looks like. He told me that it looks
> like a small fern leaf, and grows in mats about 1" deep. However, in all of
> the CP books that I have, the moss that they grow CP in has a kind of
> shotish stem with a little green bobble or pom-pom-like structure on the
> top. I have both these types growing in the woods nearby, but I don't know
> which one I should use, or how to encourage it to grow on my media . On the
> other hand, the moss that I got that was alrerady growing in the pots when I
> bought the plants looks completely different from both the other kinds! Can
> you use any kind of moss, or what? Help!
I not an expert on mosses, and I don't intentionally use them with my
CP, unless they appear naturally, in which case I leave them except
for a bit of thinning out if they become a nuisance. The stuff I'd
think of as sphagnum has elongated strands with what could possibly
be described as 'ferny' leaves along them. Things with 'bobbles' on
the end are normally the fruiting (sporing, or whatever mosses do)
bodies.
Some people use pure sphagnum as their growing medium - I mean the
whole lot, and not just a layer on the top. I shouldn't think that
layers of moss on the surface make much difference one way or the
other, so I wouldn't worry whether it grows or not.
-- Clarke Brunt (clarke@brunt.demon.co.uk)