Sometimes the quiet ones surprise us. Take moss — those fuzzy green pads you see on the sides of old trees, or hanging onto rocks. Who notices moss? It's just ... there, doing whatever it does — so slowly, so terribly slowly, that nobody bothers to think about it. Moss creeps up tree bark, sits quietly on crevasses in rocks. Moss is an old, old life form, one of the earliest plants to attach to land around 450 million years ago. It's very patient, very modest — but when you look closely, you discover it has super powers. Pow! Crunch! Zap! I've just read a spectacular ode to moss, written by Elizabeth Gilbert. (Remember Eat, Pray, Love ? Same author. She's got a new novel , The Signature of All Things .) In it, Gilbert tells the story of Alma Whittaker, a plant-loving Philadelphia girl who finds a couple of boulders behind her house with small patches of moss. They are different species, and when Alma looks closely, she sees they are fighting each other for space. She watches them do
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