Among the familiar tips for surviving in the wild is this: moss grows on the northern part of tree trunks, so with its help you can determine the cardinal directions and get out of the forest. We decided to see if moss would help us navigate the forest.

By the location of moss in the forest you can navigate to the cardinal directions - a lot is written about this on the Internet. It is assumed that moss, which loves shade and moisture, growing where there is less sun, that is, on the north side of the tree trunk. That's what they say in the collections advice in case you get lost in the forest, sometimes even on official websites city administrations.

There are many people on the Internet who have tried to test this advice in practice. Some bloggers went into the forest with a compass and examined the trees for moss. “You can’t navigate by the moss on the trees in the Karelian taiga,” - writes one of them. He found trees that were covered with moss on all sides equally, and even photographed two trunks standing next to each other: one noticeably leaned to the north, the other to the south. The moss adjusted: it grew on one tree on the north side, and on the other on the south. Another curious considered moss in the Murmansk region and noticed that most of the moss is still on the northern side of the trees, but on the stones it grows on all sides.

The fact is that mosses do not have roots. systems, and indeed conductive fabric. If trees or grasses are able to “pull” water from the ground with their roots, and then distribute it throughout the plant, then moss cells receive water only from the environment: with rain, dew and fog. Therefore, shade and humidity - so that moisture does not evaporate as quickly as in the sun - are really very important for these plants. important.

However, shadow and humidity in the forest can appear not only on the north side of the tree. Provides plenty of shade and moisture factors. This was confirmed “Verified” by Doctor of Biological Sciences Alexander Pimenov, head of the laboratory at the V.N. Sukachev Forest Institute of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “The presence of moss on the northern side of the trunk is characteristic of phytocenoses in ideal conditions: this is central Russia, low air humidity, plains, sparse forests without pronounced undergrowth. In such a forest, significantly less sunlight actually falls on the northern side of the trees,” the scientist explained. But in order for the north side of the tree to become more attractive to moss than others, it must be illuminated by the sun from all other sides.

Therefore, this rule is full of exceptions. If we are talking about mountainous, swampy, closed forests or those where there are a lot of bushes and tall grasses (they are found in the Russian North, the Urals, Siberia, and the Caucasus), then the humidity there is so high and there is so little sun that moss grows on all sides, Pimenov said. “This indicator is very conditional, and it is impossible to use it everywhere and always,” the biologist summed up.

German naturalist and forester Peter Wohlleben in his book The Secret Life of Trees notes that the slope of the tree is also important. Moss grows in the place at the bottom of the tree where water flows after rain. But it flows unevenly, because most trees do not grow strictly vertically. “On the upper side of the slight bend, a small stream is formed, from which the mosses absorb water. Each tree leans in its own direction, so trying to navigate by moss will only confuse you,” writes Wohlleben.

It turns out that moss really does have a tendency to grow on the north side of trees. But other factors: climate, bodies of water, grass and bushes, forest density and even the tilt of a tree can change everything and confuse a lost person even more.