Gathering Moss

It’s the time when I first had an inkling that the already gorgeous world becomes even more beautiful the closer you look.

Mosses are small because they lack any support system to hold them upright. Large mosses occur mostly in lakes and streams, where the water can support their weight. Trees stand tall and rigid because of their vascular tissue, the network of xylem, thick- walled tubular cells that conduct water within the plant like wooden plumbing. Mosses are the most primitive of plants and lack any such vascular tissue. Their slender stems couldn’t support their weight if they were any taller. This same lack of xylem means that they can’t conduct water from the soil to leaves at the top of the shoot. A plant more than a few centimeters high can’t keep itself hydrated.

The type of chlorophyll in their leaves differs from their sun- loving counterparts, and is fine- tuned to absorb the wavelengths of light that filter through the forest canopy.

Mosses were the first plants to colonize the land, and paved the way for the creatures that followed. Many entomologists believe that the early stages of insect evolution took place in the mats of moss.

The predominant cause of tree mortality in the northern deciduous forest is windthrow

Paradoxically, disturbance is vital to the stability of the forest.

Iroquois women tell that any prohibitions on women’s activities in their moontime arose because women were at the height of their spiritual powers at this time, and the powerful flow of energy could disrupt the balance of energy around them.

The presence of Sphagnum causes the soil to become saturated, filling the spaces between soil particles that might otherwise hold air. Roots need to breathe, too, and the waterlogged peat creates an anaerobic rooting environment which most plants can’t tolerate. This impedes the growth of trees, leaving the bog sunny and open.

Apparently, just before entering the winter den, bears may eat a large quantity of moss, which so binds up their digestive system that it blocks defecation through the long winter sleep.

The patterns of reciprocity by which mosses bind together a forest community offer us a vision of what could be. They take only the little that they need and give back in abundance.