Spanish Moss, it's not a moss. It's a flowering (you've probably never seen them, the flowers are tiny) plant with aerial roots -- gets its water and nutrients from the air. Around New Orleans it loves the Live Oak tree -- according to Wikipedia it "shows a preference of growth on southern live oak and bald cypress because of these trees high rate of foliar mineral leaching (Ca, Mg, K, and P) providing an abundant supply of nutrients to the plant. Interesting, eh?--steve buser
7 comments:
I'm a little bit confused, so you mean it gets the nutrients from the oak tree, the cypress?
Velly, Velly Interesting...as they used to say on "Laugh In".
I had never seen or heard of this, so thanks to you, I'm a little smarter today than I was yesterday.
LOL:)
Great closeup of this prolific Southern moss.
Ah a good question. I'm in Spain at the moment, Steve and showed your photo to a friend but she didn't know either. I have it growing on trees in my garden in Gorbio but again, don't know the name. am sure Tog will tell us.
I have seen the moss before but never up close. Nice shot. It must have been a calm day.
I had no idea that Spanish Moss wasn't moss. Very interesting!
Spanish moss is actually a parasite, but a very pretty one.
I do wonder what they call it in Spain. Or maybe they don't have it at all!
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