Gathering Moss

I have had this book on my bedside table for a while and now I wish I had got around to reading it sooner. To anyone (and this includes me) who tends to think of moss as merely something that you need to scrape off the patio, this book is an eye-opener. Who would have thought that the tiny world of mosses could be so fascinating?
The author is a renowned American botanist based at CUNY whose scientific practice, as a member of the Potawatomi people, is informed by indigenous ecological knowledge and methods. Her work led her to specialise in mosses, studying the many different species and their habitats. Gathering Moss is a collection of Kimmerer’s beautifully written personal essays, which gives a fascinating glimpse into the very varied life and habitats of mosses she has studied.
The future biologist’s interest in the scientific world was sparked in kindergarten by a teacher who showed the class how to look at snowflakes through a magnifying glass. As Kimmerer says in her introduction, ‘Learning to see mosses mingles with my first memory of a snowflake’ with ‘leaves as tiny and perfectly ordered as a snowflake’ and ‘unseen lives complex and beautiful’.  In these essays, Kimmerer shows us how to see mosses too.
Kimmerer explores how various species of mosses interact with each other and with the surrounding ecosystem, having evolved often elaborate mechanisms to survive hostile conditions and reproduce. She likens a patch of moss in all its complexity, to a forest on a miniature scale. Once you have this thought, it’s hard not to see the resemblance, but of course we rarely look at moss that closely. The structure of these plants is incredible and often beautiful; a miracle in the smallest scale supporting a wealth of insect life.
If you want to get into reading on natural history topics, you couldn’t find a better place to begin. And then, all you need is a magnifying glass...