Credits:
Intro
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OPEN
A Southern Gothic,
a Live Oak Lady,
caressing limbs, secret and shady.
Wild and pale, curly and thin,
She's a tease in the breeze.
She sways in the wind.”
― Charles Ghigna, “Spanish Moss"
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This is such a part of the Gulf Coast landscape. My first recollection of seeing Spanish moss was along Pensacola Bay on the Gulf, on a trip to visit my girlfriend’s parents. Like other regional icons of the natural world, it was a fascinating surprise that gets sated by seeing the real thing front and center. And I followed Kathy’s advice, “Don’t touch it or you might get chiggers or some other bitin’ bug. That caused me to focus up close without touching, careful not to inhale too deeply for fear of swallowing or breathing in something I wished I hadn’t.
Hey! I’m your host Cave Buckner and you’re listening to The Southern Minute
I consider Spanish moss to be like icing on the cake within a Southern gothic setting. It’s the decoration of the coastal South you immediately see—those swashes of drips and drabs swishing lazily in a sea breeze, evoking romance during the day, or a foreboding apprehension after sunset. It’s a plant that seduces or terrifies. It’s like going to a Chuckie Cheese for the first time with kids— it’s an experience elevator of a subtle and not so subtle degree of awareness.
Magniloquence aside, it really is harmless. Spanish moss lives on trees in areas of high humidity, and can be found on live oaks, pines and some other tree species that border estuaries, rivers, swamps, and along the coastal plains of the Southeastern United States.
What is Spanish moss?
Intricate details of spanish moss, showcasing its delicate texture and ethereal beauty perfect for nature, botanical, or design projects seeking an airy, serene aesthetic. PHOTO: Vecteez
It’s weird to call Spanish moss a plant, because looking at it, it’s amorphous—a mass of tendrils falling to the throes of gravity, much like Rapunzel’s hair, draping over limb and bough. As a matter of fact, it was later called “moss hair,” and what Southern child has not placed a mass of those tendrils on top of their own head to emulate a new “do,” much to the horror of their mothers, considering it might harbor creepy crawlies and midge biters.
Not to be confused with mistletoe, Spanish moss falls within the Bromeliad or pineapple family of plants, and it is not a parasitic plant. It’s an epiphyte, or air plant. It gets everything it needs from sunlight, rain and unpolluted air. Like most plants, it produces its own energy from the process of photosynthesis using carbon dioxide, water and sunlight.
According to a USDA plant guide, “Spanish moss absorbs moisture into its leaves when it rains. The gray scales that cover the leaves and give this plant its characteristic appearance help with this process.
They trap water underneath them when it rains, and the moisture is then gradually absorbed by the plant. These overlapping scales, also trap dust and nutrient particles and it is thought that these plants may play a critical role in nutrient cycling.
A home for wildlife
Several wildlife species depend upon Spanish moss as part of their habitat needs. For example, in South Carolina, University of Georgia Wildlife Researcher Cris Hein, in 2005, found that the Seminole Bat roosted in the overstory of hardwood trees and were located near the top of the canopy on small branches near clusters of dead leaves, within Spanish moss, or on vines hanging from overstory branches.
In the summertime, the bats, which are mammals, switched to loblolly pines within Spanish moss roosts, the transition thought to be solar intensity related. Other wildlife research shows Yellow-throated and Northern Parula Warblers build their nests inside clumps of living Spanish moss. Several other species of birds gather the moss for nesting material.
A plant with many uses
It turns out that Spanish moss had many utilitarian uses for Southeastern Indian tribes. In particular, the Houma in Louisiana and the Seminole in Florida, have used Spanish moss for a variety of purposes.
This is where it starts to get interesting from an ethnobotany standpoint. Through accidental discovery or whether some curious mind intentionally explored the idea of using the moss for sewing thread, rope, or weaving material, it had to be processed before they could use it.
The USDA plant guide states that “When the outer coating of the plant is cleaned away, tough, black, curly inner fibers are exposed. These strong fibers were useful in many ways. The fibers were woven into a course cloth that was used for bedding, floor mats and horse blankets. The fibers could be twisted into cordage that was used as rope.
The process the Indians used to strip off the outer coating is still used today. It consists of placing bundles of the green moss into a shallow pond for six weeks, long enough for the outer coat to rot away.
So, what were some of these uses? Spanish moss was used as an ingredient in clay that was used to plaster the insides of houses, much the same way horsehair was included in plaster for wall insulation in the 19th, and early 20th centuries. It was collected from the surrounding trees, soaked in water and stuffed into dugout canoes to keep them from drying out and splitting.
The Natchez tribe in Louisiana played a game that used fist-size balls that were stuffed with Spanish moss. [Medicinally], the plant was boiled to make a tea for chills and fever. There is also evidence that Spanish moss was used over 3,000 years ago to make fire-tempered pottery. Although the moss burned away during the firing, the distinctive pattern of the fibers is still evident in the clay pottery.”
Which brings us up to 20 Century uses, where Spanish moss had the trade name of “vegetable hair,” to identify it differently from horsehair, which was used in some of the same products.
In earlier times, moss had a variety of uses in upholstery. It was used to stuff everything from car cushions to horse collars, but it was mainly used in furniture manufacturing.
There is a fascinating overview in the Florida Historical Quarterly of the historical record of the Spanish moss industry in Florida, during its heyday and I'll put a link on this podcast page at my website, CaveBuckner.com.
It was a big Southern business
Author Anne Gometz Foshee, states that as early as 1773 William Bartram observed that “it seems particularly adapted to the purpose of stuffing mattresses, chairs, saddles, and collars, and for these purposes, nothing yet known equals it.
Spanish moss drying on racks in preparation for separating the leaves from the fibrous core so that it can be cleaned in a gin. PHOTO: Library of Congress 1946
Fresh moss was gathered and cured by wetting it down and packing it in trenches or pits in the ground, where it usually remained for six to eight months, during which the outer covering rotted off, leaving the inner strand.
Author Foshee says, "It was vitally important to stop the rotting, or retting, at the right moment— not too soon, but before the central fiber began to weaken.”
At the moss factory it was sorted, cleaned and baled for shipment. Quite a few Louisianians made at least a part-time living from collecting moss.
An “industrial survey” of Florida published in 1928 found five moss factories, one each in Duval, Gulf, and Putnam counties, and two in Alachua. In 1937 there were an estimated seventy factories in four states (Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina).
Approximately a dozen of these were in Florida. By 1957 this number had dwindled to two. These were the Vego Hair Company in Gainesville and the Florida Moss Company in Ocala. The last operating factory in the South was located in Gainesville, Fla. It burned in 1958 and did not reopen.
It was hard to compete in a world that had discovered synthetic foam and plastics.
Growing requirements
Bales of ginned moss being loaded onto a truck PHOTO: Library of Congress 1928
For all you gardeners and florists, it is sold and delivered by mail, and if you want to grow it, Spanish moss propagates by seed or plant division and it's relatively easy to grow in the right climate or greenhouse where the temperature and humidity can be regulated. The plants need a temperature of 70 degrees or warmer in the summer and not less than 60 degrees in the winter. The plants grow well in full sunlight to partial shade.
What a fascinating, iconic Southern plant. And such ingenuity shown by Native Americans and later, American businessmen —and I’ll even go so far as to say some Yankee know-how such as when Henry Ford contracted to put it in all of his automobile seats on the assembly line. I read somewhere that due to mysterious Sunday drive chigger bites, Ford discontinued the use of the epiphyte for—I don’t know—maybe horsehair. Don’t quote me on that.
You’ve been listening to The Southern Minute and I’m your host Cave Buckner. Till next time . .
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LINKS:
Have you ever wanted to hear how Spanish moss communicates? This short audio clip uses bio-sonification to translate the bio-electric signals of a live Spanish moss bromeliad into synthesizer notes.
Click here to hear Spanish moss “talk."
Foshee, Gometz Anne, “Vegetable Hair: The Spanish Moss Industry in Florida,” Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 66, No.3, 1987
Click here for an in-depth look at the Spanish moss business in the South