All about plants and planters: Artificial sphagnum moss

Members of the sphagnum moss family can hold large quantities of water inside their cells; some species can hold up to 20 times their dry weight in water. Because of this ability, peat mosses are often used as a soil conditioner.

Sphagnum disperses its spores through the wind, but the tops of spore capsules are only about 1 cm above ground, and the wind is weak that height. As the spherical spore capsule dries, the operculum or bud cap is forced off, followed by a cloud of spores. High speed photography has shown that vortex rings (smoke rings are an example of these) are created during the discharge, which enable the spores to reach a height of 10 to 20 cm, further than would be expected by ballistics alone.

I'm trying quite hard to think of an amusing link between recent posts with models and moss but I can't. All I can do is show you images of fake moss with fake rocks.

Try performing a Google picture search for moss. Is it just me, or does the collection of images induce a wonderful feeling of serenity.