I recently read Elizabeth Gilbert's The Signature of All Things, and though I wanted to like the book, I didn't. But I loved the passages about the main character's passion, mosses. Gilbert is herself an enthusiastic and knowledgeable gardener and a scholarly student of her topic (now I want to read Robin Wall Kimmerer's Gathering Moss, which Gilbert read and re-read) She writes about moss with such precision, respect, and joy that the bryophytes seem to spring up from the page.
Among many passages that captured my imagination were these:
"Moss is inconceivably strong. Moss eats stone; scarcely anything, in return, eats moss. Moss dines upon boulders, slowly but devastatingly, in a meal that lasts for centuries. Given enough time, a colony of moss can turn a cliff into gravel, and turn that gravel into topsoil. Under shelves of exposed limestone, moss colonies create dripping, living sponges that hold on tight and drink calciferous water straight from the stone. Over time, this mix of moss and mineral will itself turn into travertine marble. Within that hard, creamy-white marble surface, one will forever see veins of blue, green, and gray -- the traces of the antediluvian moss settlements. St. Peter's Basilica itself was built from the stuff, both created by and stained with the bodies of ancient moss colonies."
"[Moss] grows on the fur of sloths, on the backs of snails, on decaying human bones."
"Now the miniature forest below her gaze sprang into majestic detail. . . . This was a stupefying kingdom. This was the Amazon jungle as seen from the back of a harpy eagle. She rode her eye above the surprising landscape, following its paths in every direction. Here were rich, abundant valleys filled with tiny trees of braided mermaid hair and minuscule, tangled vines. Here was barely visible tributaries running through that jungle."
Moss: soft, springy, strong, satisfyingly beautiful.
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