Moss

Moss, a city and district in Norway.

• 26.000 inhabitants.
• Natural trade and service center for neighboring districts with an additional 25.000 people.
• Covers 64 square kilometres.
• Ferry to Horten and Hirtshals(Denmark).
• E6 (European Route) – 60 km to Oslo.<(li>
• 70 km from the Swedish border.
• The regional government is located in Moss.

Moss is notorious for its many factories - in fact, it has more than 250 industrial companies, ranging from paper to rainwear.

Because of that, most people just think of the smell when they hear something about Moss.

For those of you who have got your Norwegian right, more info would be found on the infamous World Wide Web, more precisely at www.moss.kommune.no.

Peat mosses (Class Sphagnopsida) are plants which form spongy, pale-green mats in still freshwater environments like pools, bogs, swamps, and the shores of lakes and ponds.

Members of Class Andreaeopsida (which includes the granite mosses) are blackish-green plants with rhizoids which grow on silica-containing rocks (such as granite) at high altitudes and on soils in cold regions.

True mosses (Class Bryopsida) are a large and diverse group of plants that tend to consist of tiny, branching filaments, rhizoids, and reproductive organs at the tips of their leaflike filaments which release spores. They mostly grow on tree branches, rocks, and bare soil, but may also grow in freshwater streams or in arid regions.

From the science dictionary at http://biotech.icmb.utexas.edu/

i know the word from my childhood; there was a boggy area toward the top of the hills off the road we lived on when i was seven or so, known locally as "The Moss'. The kids were warned to stay away because it was said that people had got stuck in the bog and starved trying to escape. Of course we kids were never put off going up, partly because it was Forbidden, partly for the adventure, partly because there was a standing stone on the other side that was said to be haunted by some ghost, will o the wisp or faery-creature, and we were curious. The worst that happened to us, however, was mud, and the risk of a thrashing for getting our clothes too dirty. it's significant that we were never bold or stupid enough to go up after drk, that much common sense we had.

The only time I was ever there even close to dark was one dusk, accompanied by a friend who claimed he'd seen lights moving around the stone, the far side of the bog. Even at age seven, i discounted his story; his parents were pretty fierce about his being out too long after dark, and he was a scaredy-cat to boot. I saw no moving lights beyond the torches we carried. I wish I could tell tales of missing children or of bones discovered sticking out of the ground, but there are none, only a girl who was said to have walked off one night, to be found days later wandering toward another village nearby, unhurt but mucky.

"Moss" is a feature of many northern English and Scottish folk songs, often linked with 'moors' and 'the heather/heath' as places to avoid. Many local histories warn people away from these areas, well-known to be haunted by local monsters, ghouls or other sprit ne'er-do-wells. As they were usually off the beaten track and away from civilisation, who could tell what was really living there? The song Long Lankin carries a warning similar to the one my mother gave me, to "beware the moss". I got away with a scolding rather than being murdered or eaten; possibly I had to suffer being sent to bed without dessert. Sixty years on, my memory is raher vague, but the punishment I imagined was far worse.

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Moss (?), n. [OE. mos; akin to AS. meos, D. mos, G. moos, OHG. mos, mios, Icel. mosi, Dan. mos, Sw. mossa, Russ. mokh', L. muscus. Cf. Muscoid.]

1. Bot.

A cryptogamous plant of a cellular structure, with distinct stem and simple leaves. The fruit is a small capsule usually opening by an apical lid, and so discharging the spores. There are many species, collectively termed Musci, growing on the earth, on rocks, and trunks of trees, etc., and a few in running water.

⇒ The term moss is also popularly applied to many other small cryptogamic plants, particularly lichens, species of which are called tree moss, rock moss, coral moss, etc. Fir moss and club moss are of the genus Lycopodium. See Club moss, under Club, and Lycopodium.

2.

A bog; a morass; a place containing peat; as, the mosses of the Scottish border.

⇒ Moss is used with participles in the composition of words which need no special explanation; as, moss-capped, moss-clad, moss-covered, moss-grown, etc.

Black moss. See under Black, and Tillandsia. -- Bog moss. See Sphagnum. -- Feather moss, any moss branched in a feathery manner, esp. several species of the genus Hypnum. -- Florida moss, Long moss, ∨ Spanish moss. See Tillandsia. -- Iceland moss, a lichen. See Iceland Moss. -- Irish moss, a seaweed. See Carrageen. -- Moss agate Min., a variety of agate, containing brown, black, or green mosslike or dendritic markings, due in part to oxide of manganese. Called also Mocha stone. -- Moss animal Zool., a bryozoan. -- Moss berry Bot., the small cranberry (Vaccinium Oxycoccus). -- Moss campion Bot., a kind of mosslike catchfly (Silene acaulis), with mostly purplish flowers, found on the highest mountains of Europe and America, and within the Arctic circle. -- Moss land, land produced accumulation of aquatic plants, forming peat bogs of more or less consistency, as the water is grained off or retained in its pores. -- Moss pink Bot., a plant of the genus Phlox (P. subulata), growing in patches on dry rocky hills in the Middle United States, and often cultivated for its handsome flowers. Gray. -- Moss rose Bot., a variety of rose having a mosslike growth on the stalk and calyx. It is said to be derived from the Provence rose. -- Moss rush Bot., a rush of the genus Juncus (J. squarrosus). -- Scale moss. See Hepatica.

© Webster 1913.

Moss, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Mossed (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Mossing.]

To cover or overgrow with moss.

An oak whose boughs were mossed with age. Shak.

© Webster 1913.