Now and then, I run across a news/feature article from the past and find myself wondering if the thing that caught the writer's attention is still relevant today. Usually, there's no way to find out, but the question still remains. Here is one of those articles I ran across last week. It was originally published on Saturday, December 20, 1958, in the News & Courier.
The headline reads: Kingstree Moss Adopts Michigan, which sounded a little odd, as moss isn't present in all of South Carolina, much less in the upper mid-west. I well remember when my cousins who lived in Columbia were small and how entranced they were by the moss every time they visited here.
The story stated, "Evidently Lowcountry moss is a hardy cold-weather native, despite its avowed fondness for the sunny climes of Carolina.
"A batch of it is growing heartily in snow-swept Michigan.
"Mrs. John D. Britton reports she packed some flowers in Lowcountry moss last summer and mailed the box to a friend in Detroit. The moss was hung on a tree in her friend's yard, more as a dare than anything.
"A few days ago came the reply that the moss was not only living, but was thriving.
"'As soon as the weather turned cold at Thanksgiving, the moss got greener,' the friend wrote. 'Since then it has been snowed on and blown by icy winds in a temperature three degrees below zero. If it is dead, it is the liveliest dead thing I ever saw.'
"She thinks it may be the moisture in the air from Lake Michigan that accounts for the moss's hardy state."
I wonder a bit about either the writer's or Bessie Britton's friend's geographical knowledge, as Detroit is on the other side of the state from Lake Michigan, and any moisture in the air would have likely come from Lake Eerie or Lake St. Clair, but that discrepancy doesn't keep me from imagining that somewhere in Detroit there may be a tree still covered in Spanish moss sent there by Bessie Swann Britton 62 years ago.
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