Buxbaumia

Buxbaumia (Bug moss, Bug-on-a-stick, Humpbacked elves, or Elf-cap moss) is the botanical name for a genus of twelve species of moss (Bryophyta). It was named in 1801 by Johann Hedwig to commemorate Johann Christian Buxbaum, a German physician and botanist who discovered the moss in 1712 at the mouth of the Volga River. The moss is microscopic for most of its existence, and plants are noticeable only after they begin to produce their reproductive structures. The asymmetrical spore capsule has a distinctive shape and structure, some features of which appear to be transitional from those in primitive mosses to most modern mosses.