Robin Kimmerer tells us the almost impossible, that most mosses are immune to death by drying. For them, desiccation is simply a temporary interruption in life. Mosses may lose up to 98 percent of their moisture, and still survive to restore themselves when water is replenished. It's like a plant with a little bit of magic. And turns out to be very useful. Native Americans used mosses for diapers and sanitary napkins. Magic diapers! Remember that, moms, if you find yourselves out in the woods in a pinch. Kimmerer has given me new eyes to see. I don't remember, and maybe never will memorize, the Latinate names. She gave me permission to be okay with eschewing arbitrary data in favor of learning to see life itself. The particular species mentioned by Kimmerer may or may not be present in our Special Administrative Region, I honestly have no idea... but the patterns certainly are.

By publishing your document, the content will be optimally indexed by Google via AI and sorted into the right category for over 500 million ePaper readers on YUMPU. Living at the limits of our ordinary perception, mosses are a common but largely unnoticed element of the natural world. Gathering moss is a mix of science and personal reflection that invites readers to explore and learn from the elegantly simple lives of mosses. In this series of linked personal essays, Robin Kimmerer leads general readers and scientists alike to an understanding of how mosses live and how their lives are intertwined with the lives of countless other beings. Kimmerer explains the biology of mosses clearly and artfully, while at the same time reflecting on what these fascinating organisms have to teach us. Drawing on her experiences as a scientist, a mother, and a Native American, Kimmerer explains the stories of mosses in scientific terms as well as in the framework of indigenous ways of knowing. In her book, the natural history and cultural relationships of mosses become a powerful metaphor for ways of living in the world I am noticing moss everywhere now and appreciating ist qualities. I am saddened that such amazing, ancient and tiny plants are dismissed and removed by just the kinds of chemicals from which they can protect us. Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2022-03-17 21:10:21 Bookplateleaf 0004 Boxid IA40396517 Camera Sony Alpha-A6300 (Control) Collection_set printdisabled External-identifierSecond, if you like this author's more well-known work, Braiding Sweetgrass, you'll probably like Gathering Moss as well. Both are in the same style, seamlessly blending scientific writing, personal anecdotes, and native wisdom. I actually like this one much better for some reason, probably because the author is herself a moss scientist, so this book contained a lot more vignettes about her own field experiences studying moss, providing a window into the sort of research a field botanist does. Mosses inhabit this sphere of common yet unnoticed living things. Silent observers. There's wisdom and experience here, for a plant that has witnessed millenia of life. Kimmerer taps into this deep wisdom, sharing stories of her own life as a mother, as university professor, as a Potawatomi native woman. A book about moss? Really? I hated botany in college so while this was highly recommended by a friend (who happens to be a botanist who studies ...wait for it ... sedges!), I just wasn't sure this was for me. I added it to my TBR list and spent more than a year with it there. I did attempt it once, but didn't get far and the library reclaimed it.

This is a primary adaptation to their role as the first colonisers of the land,” she says. “There was no soil here then – nothing for roots to grab on to, and no way to conserve water – so this was an evolutionary imperative. It’s quite remarkable, though not all mosses have it. Others have evolved to live in continuously wet places.” Lccn 2002151221 Ocr tesseract 5.0.0-1-g862e Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 1.0000 Ocr_module_version 0.0.15 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-WL-1200092 Openlibrary_editionMy own life feels strange, always, but especially now during the pandemic. Gathering Moss was both a respite from the news, and a reminder that Nature isn't and never has been "over there." It isn't separate from us. Our concrete jungle is as much a part of the system as that creek of my childhood. What a heady, terrifying, and reassuring concept. Shout out to this fabulous book, it made a guest appearance in my latest YouTube Video (all about making fun nature things out of felt). In one section the author discusses how two different mosses can inhabit the same log. Ecological theory predicts that coexistence is possible only when the two species diverge from one another in some essential way. This theory made me think of men and women. Maybe the only way that we can coexist is because of our differences, which there are many! But in the case of mosses, she is referring to their reproductive strategy. One moss only grows on top of logs she discovered, because this is a pathway for chipmunks who disturb the area and spread the tiny moss propagules along the way. There are always many parts to a puzzle and how curious that moss and chipmunks are linked together! In this series of linked personal essays, Robin Wall Kimmerer leads general readers and scientists alike to an understanding of how mosses live and how their lives are intertwined with the lives of countless other beings. Kimmerer explains the biology of mosses clearly and artfully, while at the same time reflecting on what these fascinating organisms have to teach us.