Low country landscape and the story of Spanish Moss

This is the third and final installment of vacation-related photos and stories. These photos below show some of the low country of South Carolina. We love the marshes, grasses, and waterways of this area. I am surprised to be unable to see an egret in these photos as they are usually spotted in the landscape.

What strikes us most is always the beautiful old oaks covered in Spanish moss as you can see below. Spanish moss is not truly a moss or lichen, but a flowering plant in the bromeliad family. It has aerial roots and tiny flowers that are typically very inconspicious. The plant is propagated by seed and vegetatively by fragments that are carried by wind and stick to tree limbs or carried by birds for nests.

When we were visiting the Angel Oak (see previous post), I read a story on a magnet about the moss that honestly sort of ruined it for me. Here's a similar story if you're a story lover, though I warn you - you may want to just end here because in my opinion, the story is not great...

"There was once a traveler who came with his Spanish fiancée in the 1700s to start a plantation near the city of Charleston SC. She was a beautiful bride-to-be with long flowing raven hair. As the couple was walking over the plantation sight near the forest, and making plans for their future, they were suddenly attacked by a band of Cherokee who were not happy to share the land of their forefathers with strangers. As a final warning to stay away from the Cherokee nation, they cut off the long dark hair of the bride-to-be and threw it up in an old live oak tree. As the people came back day after day and week after week, they began to notice the hair had shriveled and turned grey and had begun spreading from tree to tree. Over the years the moss spread from South Carolina to Georgia and Florida. To this day, if one stands under a live oak tree, one will see the moss jump from tree to tree and defend itself with a large army of beetles."

In the story I read on the magnet, the couple were buried under the tree, and the spreading moss is a symbol of eternal love.