ABC Wednesday - M

M is for Moss

A lover of dampness and low light - we have it in abundance. The clouds come over the Atlantic Ocean for a few thousand miles and here we are, the first landfall they meet and the rain falls. There are 763 species of moss currently known to occur in the British Isles however there are 12,000 species worldwide occurring on all the continents. Here are some bryophyta living in my local woods.

with daffodils (although you will have to click to enlarge to see them)

Taken this Easter week-end, these are also the first showing of this year's bluebells

Luxuriant moss with Wood Sorrel

Now you may have noticed that I have not named one species of moss and I must confess my ignorance but I think it is very beautiful. I remember a gardener once saying that she would like to be buried on a layer of moss which sounds soft and lovely but only if it was in a sylvan glade otherwise it might be a bit Macabre.....

A little moss on a table tomb in the ruins of St Peter's churchyard in Duffus, Scotland. At the corner of the graveyard there is a watch-house which was built in 1830 to shelter the guards against the body snatchers or as they were sometime know, the "resurrection men". The infamous Burke & Hare who operated in Edinburgh could sell corpses to medical students for as much as £12, a watch had to be kept day and night so the bodies were decomposed enough to be useless to the anatomist.

More marvelous Ms at ABC Wednesday