Many of them are shade-lovers, but some types of moss enjoy a sunny position. You can use moss in containers, on the ground, vertically and so much more - it's even possible to grow moss indoors.

Plants are way more complex than we knew —and they have complicated family lives. We know from fossilized spores that bryophytes have existed for around 500 million years. In other words, they ...

But this group of plants, which actually comprises between 12,000 and 15,000 species, is astonishing. Their almost unique resilience allows them to grow practically everywhere on Earth.

We looked at what was happening in soils dominated by mosses and what was happening in soils where there were no mosses. And we were gobsmacked to find that mosses were doing all these amazing things.

The other reason mosses usually need to grow in shady, wet habitats is that they don’t have a vascular system like more modern plants. They don’t have roots to take in water from the soil and ...

To test the moss’s cold tolerance, the researchers stored plants at −80°C (in an ultra-cold freezer) for 3 and 5 years and at −196°C (in a liquid nitrogen tank) for 15 and 30 days.

When people consider extraordinary plants, most probably don’t spare a thought for moss. It blends in against the green background of plant life, and seems to grow everywhere – whether you want it to ...

Some people see moss growing in their gardens as a problem, but what they may not realise is this ancient ancestor of all plants is bringing lots of benefits to our green spaces, such as protecting ...