HOW A LITTLE MOSS CREATES SWAMPS

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This type of moss is called Sphagnum moss - it's what most of the peat part of moors is made of.
Due their special structure they can soak up to 30x their bodyweight in water. Moors are basically big sponges of dead Sphagnum moss that soak up the rain.
As such a moor get's older and more moss dies, it grows higher and higher in the air - new moss grows on top of the old dead plant layers.
​The little moss plants are also the reason why moors are acidic and low in nutrients, as they evolve hydrogen ions in their surroundings. Only a few, specialized species can life in such a moor. Such as the beautiful morning dew.

I'm gonna leave you with a picture of a beautiful moor I visited with my family.
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This one is "naturalized" and is still on ground water level.  Moors got pretty rare in Europe, because people used the peat they consist of. At this place only a small part of the former moor did remain. Conservationists​ made an effort to create a reservation that tries to come as close to how the moor was before the impact of humans.


ADDENDUM

Moors are a mystical place. Do you know any good fairy tales or stories that play in moors?


Sources for this article: The book "Farne, Moose & Flechten" by Maibach/Kainz
(can recommend buying it if you're looking for a good German book to identify moss, lichen and fern)
I also once interviewed moss explorer Annette, whose favorite moss is the colorful Sphagnum moss! 
Also, while I love moss, I'm not an expert, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong!


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kesbet's avatar
kesbet
Swamps are scary to me. When I pass them by, I always think about murdered, generally dead people... If you would search Google for the swamp mummies, you find this - ancients-bg.com/the-swamp-mumm…. I've seen a documentary about ancient people killed and buried in swamps, and cannot help myself not to think about that... But I agree, swamps are some kind of magical, but for me far away from the romantic kind of magic ;)