Are Those... Flowers?

With all the spring wildflowers popping up, you may wonder whether mosses get in on the act. You may even have noticed stalked, capsule-like things coming off the tops of some moss plants, as shown in this photo:

Are those flowers? Or seed pods, perhaps?

They're neither.

Those stalked pods are actually the mosses' offspring, which remain physically attached to their parent plants.

But wait! How can those things be moss offspring? They don't look anything like the parent moss plants. True. Mosses have an odd lifecycle, alternating between two different types of generations.

One generation looks like a 'normal' moss. Those plants produce the attached, stalked pods of the next generation. These, in turn, produce a moss-like generation, which grows independently. And the cycle continues.

Things get even weirder if you consider the genetics of this 'alternation of generations'. But that would require a longer, more detailed explanation.

If anyone wants a deeper dive into moss lifecycles and genetics, let me know. Otherwise, I'll leave you to ponder the mossy spectacle of one generation living attached to their parents. Perhaps some of you feel the same way about your own offspring...