Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses

The Owner

The Owner  125 The Owner  T he letter had no return address. I’d been summoned by an invisible man, with an offer I couldn’t refuse. The letter, on thick white paper, requested my “expert services as a bryologist, to consult on an ecosystem restoration project”. It sounded pretty good. The goal was to “create an exact replica of the flora of the Appalachians, in a native plant garden.” The owner was “committed to authenticity and wished to ensure that mosses were included in the restoration.” Not only that, he requested “guidance on matching the correct species of moss to the proper rock types in the landscape.” That was to be my task should I accept their generous offer. The letter had no personal signature, just the name of the garden. I read the letter again. It sounded too good to be true. There are few people interested in ecological restoration, let alone restoration of mosses. One of my research interests at the time was to understand how mosses were able to establish themselves on bare rock. This invitation seemed like the perfect match. I was intrigued by the project, and as a new professor, I was admittedly flattered by the prospect of using my expertise and getting paid consultant fees to do it. The letter had an air of urgency about it, so I made plans to go as soon as possible. I pulled over to the roadside to unfold the directions which lay on the seat beside me. My instructions requested precise punctuality and I was trying to oblige. I’d been driving since dawn to reach this lovely valley, where bluebirds dove across the winding road into impossibly green pastures of June. An old rock wall ran beside the road and even from the car I could admire the mossy cover it had amassed over its long life. Down South, they call these “slave fences” in acknowledgement of the hands that laid the rocks. A century’s worth of Brachythecium softens the edges and the memory. The directions had me follow the stone wall until the chain-link fence began. “Turn left to the gate. It will open at 126  Gathering Moss 10:00 a.m.” Indeed, just as I arrived, the massive gate rolled smoothly away to the side, responding to some unseen commander. It was startling to find such security in this valley, which seemed more suited to horsedrawn wagons than electric eyes. I started up the steep hill, gravel crunching under my tires. I had four minutes. Around a bend in the road, I could see a rooster tail of dust against the blue morning sky. It was creeping up the hill ahead of me so slowly I know I’d be late. Around the switchback, laboring up the hill, I got a glimpse of what I was following. My brain rejected the image. Trees don’t move. But there it was again—the bare spring branches of a tree visible against the hillside, and it was heading uphill. I could see clearly now. It was an oak tree, riding piggyback on a flatbed truck. Now this was not a standard nursery-size tree with tidy burlapped root ball. No, this was a big old granddaddy oak. We had one like it on our farm in Kentucky, a huge burr oak with low spreading branches that cast a pool of shade the size of a house. It took two of us to reach our hands around it. There is no way you can move trees of this stature. And yet here it was—strapped to a truck like a circus elephant on a parade float. The root ball was twenty feet across and tethered to the truck with steel cables. The truck pulled over and steam rose from under the hood as I passed by, staring. The road ended in a lot full of construction vehicles, all with engines running. The scraped earth was surrounded by a collection of barns and open-doored garages. I parked next to a row of dusty Jeeps and looked around for my host. There were dozens of people moving about, at a frenetic pace that reminded me of an anthill disturbed. Trucks were loaded and sped away. Most of the workers were dark and small. They wore blue jumpsuits and called to each other in Spanish. One man stood out in his red shirt and white hardhat. His folded arms announced that he was waiting for me...