The Banner of Death Traditional Cache
Krypton: As there's been no cache to find for months, I'm archiving it to keep it from continually showing up in search lists, and to prevent it from blocking other cache placements. If you wish to repair/replace the cache sometime in the future, just contact us (by email), and assuming it meets the guidelines, we'll be happy to unarchive it.
Thanks for your cooperation!
Krypton
Northern California Groundspeak Volunteer Cache Reviewer
Manage your cache listing http://support.groundspeak.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=234
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Size: 
(small)
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A very small pullout just up the road from the cache provides the only nearby parking. Please replace the cache exactly as you found it.
To the earliest colonists on the East Coast, Spanish moss, like that seen hanging from the trees at the cache site, was ominously referred to as the “banner of death.” Common to the swamps, bayous, and wetlands of the Southeast, colonists were greeted by vast curtains of tattered, gossamer-like moss hanging from the cypress trees. At the time, swamps and bayous were considered dark, foreign, and unforgiving places full of both society’s and Mother Nature’s less desirable elements: Native Americans, social outcasts, fur trappers, evil spirits, disease carrying insects, poisonous snakes, alligators, and quicksand. To most, the shrouds of moss dangling overhead served as a firm warning of the perceived dangers that conspired within.
Like all other "hanging mosses," Spanish moss is not actually a moss at all, but rather a lichen. The species hanging overhead at the cache site, often casually referred to as California Spanish moss, is actually Lace lichen (Ramalina menziesii). Like the lichens found growing on nearby rocks and logs, it does not need soil to live and does not have a root system like most plants. This means that lichens can only take moisture from the air or from precipitation which falls on them.
To compensate, lichens can essentially “shut down” during extremely hot, cold, or dry periods and remain in a suspended state until conditions improve. In the case of Lace lichen, pieces of "dead" lichen can sit in a drawer for years and within literally a few second of being re-introduced to light and moisture, begin actively growing again. The lack of need for soil and the ability to shut down allows lichens to thrive in extreme environments where most plant species would perish - even in space.
Lace lichen prefer to inhabit oak tress and actually establishes a beneficial relationship with them. While the oak tree provides the moss with a structure to live on, the moss traps and holds small particles of nutrients which are carried by the wind. Then, when it rains, the nutrients are washed off of the lichen and fall to the ground beneath the oak tree where its roots can access them.
So, its not so scary after all.
Congratulations to PathfinderMark for first to find !
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Bss gur tebhaq naq pbirerq.
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