Spanish Moss #2 Traditional Cache

Spanish Moss is not moss but an air plant, epiphyte, that actually bears inconspicuous flowers and fruits. It is a Bromeliad. It uses other plants only for support. Please BYOP and check the bottom of the page for more cache info.

Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) is a flowering plant that often grows upon larger trees. In the United States, it is commonly found on the southern live oak and bald-cypress in the lowlands, swamps, and savannas of the southeastern United States from Texas and Florida north through southern Arkansas and Virginia.

This plant's specific name usneoides means "resembling Usnea", and it indeed superficially resembles its namesake Usnea, also known as beard lichen, but in fact Spanish moss is neither a moss nor a lichen. Instead, it is a flowering plant in the family Bromeliaceae (the bromeliads) which grows hanging from tree branches in full sun through partial shade.

The plant consists of one or more slender stems bearing alternate thin, curved or curly, heavily scaled leaves 2–6 cm (0.8–2.4 in) long and 1 mm (0.04 in) broad, that grow vegetatively in chain-like fashion (pendant), forming hanging structures up to 6 m (240 in) in length. The plant has no aerial roots and its brown, green, or yellow flowers are tiny and inconspicuous. It propagates both by seed and vegetatively by fragments that blow on the wind and stick to tree limbs, or are carried by birds as nesting material.

Spanish-moss is an epiphyte which absorbs nutrients and water through its leaves from the air and rainfall.

While it rarely kills the tree upon which it grows, it can occasionally become so thick that it shades the tree's leaves and lowers its growth rate.

In the southern U.S., the plant seems to show a preference for growth on southern live oak and bald cypress because of these trees' high rates of foliar mineral leaching (calcium, magnesium, potassium, and phosphorus) providing an abundant supply of nutrients to the plant, but it can also colonize other tree species such as sweetgum, crepe-myrtles), other oaks, and even pines.

Spanish-moss shelters a number of creatures, including rat snakes and three species of bats. One species of jumping spider, has been found only on Spanish-moss. Chiggers, though widely assumed to infest Spanish-moss, were not present among thousands of other arthropods identified in one study.

Culture and folklore

Due to its propensity for growing in subtropical humid southern locales, the plant is often associated with Southern Gothic imagery and Deep South culture.

It was introduced to Hawaii in the 19th century, and became a popular ornamental and lei plant. On Hawai'i it is often called "Pele's hair" after Pele the Hawaiian goddess. 

Human uses

Spanish-moss has been used for various purposes, including building insulation, mulch, packing material, mattress stuffing, and fiber. In the early 1900s it was used commercially in the padding of car seats. In 1939 over 10,000 tons of processed Spanish-moss was produced. It is still collected today in smaller quantities for use in arts and crafts, or for beddings for flower gardens, and as an ingredient in the traditional wall covering material bousillage. In some parts of Latin America, Spanish moss is used in Nativity scenes.

In the desert regions of the southwestern United States, dried Spanish-moss plants are used in the manufacture of evaporative coolers, colloquially known as swamp coolers. These are used to cool homes and offices much less expensively than using air conditioners. A pump squirts water onto a pad made of Spanish-moss plants. A fan then pulls air through the pad and into the building. Evaporation of the water on the pads serves to reduce the air temperature, thus cooling the building.

The cache is a tied in, camoed, "small" pill bottle, the push hard to both open and close kind. It holds only a rolled log, with a rubber band, in a tiny plastic zip lock bag,... so far. There's potential room for small SWAG. Please BYOP and put everything back as you found it and make sure the bag and lid are closed tightly.