Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses

Winner of the 2005 John Burroughs Medal Award for Natural History Writing.

Living at the limits of our ordinary perception, mosses are a common but largely unnoticed element of the natural world. Gathering Moss is a beautifully written mix of science and personal reflection that invites readers to explore and learn from the elegantly simple lives of mosses.

In this series of linked personal essays, Robin Wall Kimmerer leads general readers and scientists alike to an understanding of how mosses live and how their lives are intertwined with the lives of countless other beings. Kimmerer explains the biology of mosses clearly and artfully, while at the same time reflecting on what these fascinating organisms have to teach us.

Drawing on her diverse experiences as a scientist, mother, teacher, and writer of Native American heritage, Kimmerer explains the stories of mosses in scientific terms as well as in the framework of indigenous ways of knowing. In her book, the natural history and cultural relationships of mosses become a powerful metaphor for ways of living in the world.

"Something I took for granted suddenly has come alive, because I have been given its story. After reading this book, I took a magnifying glass outside and pored over tree trunks. I have seen Robin Kimmerer's miniature landscape for myself. Yet, this is so much more than a book about mosses. This is a Native American woman speaking. This is a mother's story. This is science revealed through the human psyche. Robin Kimmerer is a scientist who combines empiricism with all other forms of knowing. Hers is a spectacularly different view of the world, and her true voice needs to be heard." –Janisse Ray, author of Ecology of a Cracker Childhood and Wild Card Quilt: Taking a Chance on Home

"An interesting account, both personal and exact, of an area of the vegetable kingdom that I often do not even notice… [a] passionate emphasis on something often most successfully appreciated by viewing through a microscope." –Jamaica Kincaid, The New York Times Book Review

"Robin Kimmerer… has written as good a book as you will find on a natural history subject. You will want to go outside and get on your knees with a hand lens and begin to probe this Lilliputian world she describes so beautifully." –Seattle Times

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a Distinguished Teaching Professor and Founding Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at SUNY-Syracuse. She has published numerous articles on the biology and ecology of mosses, as well as articles on traditional Native American knowledge of the natural world. Gathering Moss is her first book.