If you look at it through a jeweler’s loupe, you find that moss comes in fascinatingly different forms. You also discover something of its habits, such as the way it traps tiny droplets of water.
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A Forest of Moss
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Bicolor Grape Hyacinth
Muscari latifolium is not nearly as popular as the common grape hyacinth, M. neglectum, but it adds interest to an early-spring display.
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Fox Squirrel
Sciurus niger in Bird Park, Mount Lebanon. This is the largest of our tree squirrels, easily confused with the almost-as-big grey squirrel (Sciurus calolinensis), but usually distinguishable by a certain amount of brownish coloring, which the grey squirrel seldom has.
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Two More Daffodils
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Bracket Fungus
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Fun with a Jeweler’s Loupe
A cell-phone camera has a very small lens. This can be a liability, but in some cases it can be an advantage. For example, the lens on a cheap phone is small enough to take pictures through a jeweler’s loupe. Above, flowers of Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica), with the edge of the loupe left in the picture as a kind of visual statement of the theme of this article. Actually, it’s easy to put the lens right in the middle of the loupe and not see the edges at all. Here are some of the other things you can see with a loupe and a cheap little cell-phone camera:
Lichen growing on a twig.
Moss on a log.
Chickweed (Stellaria media). For comparison, here is a fairly close photograph of the entire plant without the jeweler’s loupe:
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Waterfall and Mossy Rock
Rendered with only the moss in natural color and the rest in black and white, because you can do that with image-manipulation software.
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Forsythia
Blooming today in Polish Hill.
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The Flowers That Bloom in the Spring, Tra La
A roundup of spring flowers blooming yesterday. Above, a purple crocus. Below, a yellow crocus.
Persian Speedwell (Veronica persica), a tiny weed with exquisite sky-blue flowers. 
A daffodil. 
More crocuses. 
Hairy Bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta), a tiny cress that is one of the first flowers to bloom in late winter. -
Crocuses in the Rain
