A material record / Plant
Moss
Soft carpets of bryophytes from forest floors, logs and rocks, widely picked for floral work.
01 / Origin
Where it comes from.
Much of the moss sold for floristry and decoration is picked from the wild. A study of United States forests estimated, from export data, a yearly harvest of roughly 4.6 to 18.4 million kilograms of air-dry moss between 1998 and 2003, far more than permit records show. How much moss there is, how quickly it grows back, and which species and ecosystem functions harvesting affects are all poorly known.
A second study, of commercial bags picked in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia, found 73 other bryophyte species collected along with the moss being sought, together with vascular plants and animals.
In the Atlas: United States
02 / Colour
The colours it gives.
Sampled from the material, at the numbered points.
Live moss shifts from bright yellow-green at the growing tips to deep olive in the shaded layers beneath.
- 01New Growth
#B8BE4B - 02Frond
#74801A - 03Understorey
#171E04
03 / In the studies
Where it appears.
1 study uses it.
Care
Reuse preserved moss or buy from growers who cultivate it, rather than stripping it from woods.