You Could Write About MOSS!
My first story on Medium
For some time I’ve been thinking about finding a place to share some of my wonderings, curiosities, and stories. I’ve known for a while it’s something I want to do, but have lacked the confidence to speak up, I suppose.
On Saturday morning, I was telling my friend over coffee that I longed to document my upcoming travels; create a space to keep a record of plants and fungi I meet along the way, people, and projects too.
He encouraged me to just do it. “Actually, I will”, I thought and made a mental note to research websites or writing platforms. Perhaps, subconsciously adding another item to my to-do list to procrastinate on; keeping the prospect at a distance to protect myself from something that feels big and scary.
But later, I received a message from my friend:
“Does this look like it could work for you? You could write about MOSS!”.
Well… That did it.
Anyway, you have to embrace the big and scary things in life, don’t you.
Anyone who knows me knows that I friggin’ love moss. Any mention and it’s like a light turns on inside and bursts out of me! Oh, they’re just such beautiful, damp, green creatures. Soft cushions for the beds of fairies and tiny forest dwellers. Yet early land colonisers, hardy soil builders, and soon-to-be space explorers¹.
Perhaps, I can begin with a story of a trip I made to Borrowdale in the Lake District last year.
A meeting with the British Bryological Society.
Borrowdale has a pocket of England’s remaining temperate rainforest, which once covered vast swathes of the Westernmost parts of the British Isles. A rare and biodiverse habitat that most Brits don’t even know exists. Sadly, it has been reduced from covering about 1/5 of our land to just 1%² after decades of deforestation. More on that later…
I arrived at the YHA which is nestled in the valley bottom and put up my tent outside. Immediately, I felt bouncy and excited to explore; the trees were dripping with bryophytes!
I did a loop around the paths on the steep slopes at the back of the hostel before it went dark, wide-eyed and rosy-cheeked. Upon teatime, I was pleased to have use of the facilities, a warm kitchen was well-received, as I had a feeling it would be a damp weekend.
After tea, I walked over to the village to meet the other participants. I opened the door of the church hall and met eyes with another young woman on the other side of the room.
She looked a little shy, her chin tilted slightly downwards, perhaps feeling a bit out of place amongst the other attendees. We were surrounded by a cohort of bryologists, suited and booted in walking trousers, vintage rucksacks, and armed with their trusty field guides.³
I made a beeline for her. Her name was Ellen, another first-timer and fellow moss fangirl.
We watched as a young man, David, who had travelled all the way from South Africa, compared hand lenses with an enthusiastic old fellow who spoke in a thick German accent. He told me later this was the man who had written the “Mosses of Europe” textbook.⁴ We’d just met a big name in bryology.
We looked at the lists of routes/locations available for the weekend’s walks, signed up to go to a site together and agreed on a time to meet to share a lift in the morning.
Our exploration into the world of moss
Ellen was softly spoken with a brown and white checkered ribbon holding her hand lens at her chest. She had previously worked as a gardener but was just about to start a new job at Natural England, and had taught herself some bits of bryological ID after buying the field guide. I had a feeling she was definitely green fingered.
David was quite the contrast. Loud and confident in his bryological abilities; a PhD student on the topic, in fact. I was grateful for his willingness to share his knowledge with first-timers like me!
Our motley crew parked up at a car park in the village close to our mossy location of choice and headed towards a cluster of trees next to the river. There were lichens encrusting tree trunks everywhere I looked and a thick spongy layer of moss covering the ground.
“Rhytidiadelphus squarrosus”, said Ellen.
“Rhytidia-what!!”. I repeated it to myself over and over again, after asking Ellen over and over again to remind me of the name. Such patience!
We peered at what David proclaimed was a slime mold, an orange gooey-looking substance covering the underside of a fallen tree. We found a incredibly delicate and beautiful skeleton of a half-decomposed leaf. We saw many a species of moss, none of whose names I could neither pronounce nor remember.
I remember feeling a deep joy upon finding other young enthusiasts with whom to share my moss love.
After getting lost heads down, and bums up, amongst the thick undergrowth for a while, we realised there was a huddle of bryologists up on the other side of the hill. We made our way towards them. We were met by a group of oldies exclaiming various Latin names I didn’t recognise.
“Look at this Campylopus!”.
“There’s some Grimmia montana over here.”
I collected a few specimens in little plastic bags and did my best to capture some photos on my Dad’s DSLR camera which he’d reluctantly let me borrow for the weekend.
After asking many questions to everyone I came across and my brain started to feel full. So many curiosities and new things to think about. I felt a little tired of crouching and looking so closely at tiny things. So decided it was time to go for a walk. I’d come back to the moss people tomorrow.
Then, I proceeded to go back and tell everyone in the hostel kitchen how cool moss is.
That’s that for my first foray on Medium.
I hope you enjoyed reading about what was a thoroughly enjoyable initiation into the world of bryology.
[1] Aviva Rutkin, New Scientist, 2015 https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22830414-900-moss-on-mars-plant-species-being-cultivated-for-astronaut-drugs/
[2] The Lost Rainforests of Britain, Guy Shrubsole, 2022 https://lostrainforestsofbritain.org/
[3] Mosses and Liverworts of Britain and Ireland: a field guide, British Bryological Society, 2010 https://www.britishbryologicalsociety.org.uk/publications/field-guide/
[4] Mosses of Europe — A Photographic Flora, Michael Lüth, 2019 https://www.nhbs.com/mosses-of-europe-a-photographic-flora-3-volume-set-book
