About six billion ascospores, conservatively estimated, are shot into the saltmarsh air within the marsh canopy, for every square meter of marsh each year. It's a bit hard to manage the perception of this huge output, when the spores are so small (too small to see individually, and about a ng in mass). But take a look at what is visible after 72 h of expulsion of spores from a wet, naturally decaying blade of smooth cordgrass. All of the visible material on the coverslip in the image below is ascospores that have been expelled onto the coverslip by living, active ascomycetes in the decaying leaf blade that was held just above the coverslip.