Ulrica Nordstrom

I've long been curious about moss. Often easy to entirely overlook.....especially in dry Australia. But even here I have a dark green moss inhabiting the gutters on my roof-line. Most of the time it is a dried up muddy looking black lump ....as it is right now after a year of drought. But for the last two days it has been raining and I've just had a look at the moss. It's still black but plump and soaked with water and I know that within a few days it will turn that beautiful dark green that I like so much. I've also been impressed by the mosses that I've seen in the Australian rainforests...when you get up really close and can see the tiny ascocarps....and by the moss gardens in Japan. I was amused by a story I heard about some Australian students in Japan who were renting a house in Numazu with a small garden. They were unimpressed with the bare dirt (maybe with a bit of moss) so they planted lawn and proudly invited the owner to view the fruits of their handiwork. The owner was horrified! Different perspective.
This little book is quite a good guide to the world of the brophytyes....with some material on the liverworts and hornworts as well. Since studying biology many years ago I've had some appreciation of the great diversity of species that are small and not very obvious to our human senses. We all react to the likelihood of the extinction of the koala but who notices if a species of moss or a worm go extinct? As this book points out there are some 10,000 species of moss proper and some 9,000 species of liverworts and about 400 species of hornworts (or foliage mosses)...in the world. To put this in perspective there are less than 6000 species of mammals in the world.
Mosses can reproduce both sexually and asexually. The asexual reproduction is basically cloning.
Basically the book sets out to give a broad overview of mosses and has a good though rather brief introduction to the biology of mosses ...then a selection about mosses in gardens around the world....with some fascinating profiles of workers who specialise in mosses. Then about a third of the book is devoted to the practicalities of growing and cultivating mosses ...both in outdoor, garden, situations and as indoor, miniature projects. Having spent a good number of months ....probably now stretching into years ...in Japan....I was pleased to see a very healthy section devoted to the beautiful gardens using moss in Japan. Of course, the environment is ideally suited to mosses and Japanese gardeners really seem to appreciate the different species. (Though when I looked for a moss-herbicide to get rid of the moss growing on the carport roof (in Japan) I found that they were not readily available.....the main technique seemed to be gouging out the moss with a stick. In fact, the moss was a great filter for any dust that gathered on the canopy and was washed down to be captured and utilised by the moss.
Maybe, I would have liked a bit more about the botany of mosses .....especially some simple key to classifying the main sorts but overall, an interesting and useful book. I give it 3.5 stars.… (más)