Old-growth moss communities embody centuries that no technique can compress

Evidence

At the top of the rocky ridge, the land fell away sharply to a shady glen below. Wescrambled down over the ledges of the massive outcrop, taking care not to scuff up the carpets of moss. The Appalachian bedrock here was folded and contorted by eons of geologic pressure, and then rearranged by the action of glaciers. The result was a fractured stone sculpture of unlikely angles, a cubist painting of a mossy landscape. The surface of each rock was etched by time into crevices like the wrinkles on an old man’s face. Black trails of Orthotrichum traced the crevices, and thick beds of Brachythecium lay on the moist ledges. … Somehow, I was getting the impression that I had not communicated the problem very well. One more time I launched my explanation of the relationship between time and mosses. The moss beds on this outcrop were probably centuries old. If it were possible to exactly duplicate this microclimate, and then sow these same species in a moss milkshake, you might have a chance. But, even then it would take years. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss, 535

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The whole chapter turns on a collision between a consumer’s demand for instant ecological patina and the actual timescale of moss communities; the outcrop described through geologic and glacial history is the counter-argument made visible.
• XREF: This is the disturbance-history and timescale lesson at the heart of the Hamline Reading-the-Landscape course: present landscape structure records centuries of disturbance we must learn to read. — connects to: Old-growth moss mats recover almost not at all once stripped from trees — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural…, 607; Old-growth forests model self-sustaining community efficiency that human societies can emulate. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 1050; Old-growth cultures can regenerate from land memory like forests do — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 1079 (+5 more)
• SEED: Essay angle: the ‘instant patina’ desire — fake aging — as a confession that we want age without waiting, from moss lawns to distressed furniture.

Broader Connections

• Old-growth moss mats cannot reestablish because only young twigs offer footholds #complicates (0.80) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss, 614
• Folk recipes for growing moss rest on real fragment regeneration #expands (0.72) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss, 524