Extension News: January 2007 Archives

I love green. In nature, green means a time of growth and renewal. In times of rest and slumber we see browns and grays, and white that comes with ice and snow. So far the latter hasn’t put in much of an appearance here in the Northeast. Instead of the usual first couple of inches of the fluffy stuff that we get at Thanksgiving, this year, white has eluded us.

I’ve begun noticing something I’ve missed in whiter years: the beauty of the woods if you but look at all the evergreen mosses and ferns.  I’ve never had the chance to admire their brilliance and have overlooked their beauty, because most years they’re obscured by an inch or more of snow. This year, on those rare sunny days that come with late fall and early winter, the ferns and mosses glow with an emerald effervescence.

Recently, I arose to find my little farmhouse surrounded by thick, white fog. As the sun began to rise, breaks in the fog allowed me to peek into the world outside: greens so bright they hurt the eyes as they reflected back the richness and depth of the world of mosses. The mosses lie hidden during most of the year by shrubs and ferns, themselves green, but now dormant and for the most part leafless. Mosses come in so many shapes and sizes, but, unnoticed by most, they can coat rocks, replace lawns, climb trees, or help fallen logs decay and mellow into the earth.

Hidden among the mosses lies a whole ecosystem we can’t see and don’t understand. Microorganisms in those mossy beds go about performing their daily functions oblivious to us, much as the characters in one of my all-time favorite stories, Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss.

In that book only Horton the Elephant can see the tiny inhabitants of Whoville. Similarly, water bears remain invisible to the naked eye unless viewed under a microscope. Minuscule one-celled invertebrates, they resemble white, translucent polar bears, albeit with eight legs, according to Robin Wall Kimmerer the author of Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses (a book not at all as pedantic as its title makes it sound).

Kimmerer, a wonderful writer who makes the world of moss a fun, interesting and magical place, explains that these tiny creatures depend on moss in much the same way that pandas depend on bamboo; they are inextricably intertwined for survival. The water bear can insert its mouth into a moss cell and suck out its contents. It relies on drops of moisture in moss to convey it from leaf to leaf.

The tiny water bears, however, have an adaptive technique that pandas might envy: if conditions become too dry, too hot, or too cold, poof! water bears can enter a state of anabiosis, or suspended animation. When conditions improve, they rejoin the living. Under the right conditions, mosses can do the same. 

Moss can become a lawn replacement, sometimes by default, but also by intention. In Japan and other countries, whole gardens of different mosses are tended lovingly. Try walking barefoot in moss for summer pleasure. Imagine never having to spread lime and fertilizer again.

Evergreen applies not only to conifer trees, but also to some species of ferns and mosses. The Christmas fern, so named because it remains green at Christmas when others have turned brown or disappeared, remains vibrant when all else has become drab. In the same category, lycopods, often called ground pines, or club mosses, also remain green. These can look like miniature pine trees that grow singly and also in vine-like groundcover form.

Finally, I can’t forget the deciduous evergreens—the rhododendrons and the mountain laurels. Although green, they tend to telegraph their true feelings about cold by shriveling when temperatures go below freezing, and would probably agree with Kermit the Frog that it ain’t easy being green.

Winter may eventually turn the landscapes around me white, but I’ve learned to enjoy the subdued greens of the season until now. I’ve walked and hiked through the bare landscape, looking more closely than I ever have before at mosses, ferns and other greens. Yes, they always emerge from beneath the snow each spring, but living in the present has made me much more aware of green as Mother Nature’s gift.

1/16/07

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