Among all the acquaintances of survival in the wild, there is one: moss grows on the northern part of trees trunks, so that with its help you can determine the cardinal points and get out of the forest. We decided to check whether the moss will help to navigate in the forest.

By the location of the moss in the forest, you can navigate the cardinal points - this is written a lot on the Internet. It is assumed that moss who loves shadow and moisture, Grows Where there is less sun, that is, from the north side of the tree trunk. So write in collections tips In case you get lost in the forest, sometimes even on official sites city administrations.

There are many people on the network who tried to check this advice in practice. Some bloggers went to the forest with a compass and examined the trees in search of moss. “It is impossible to navigate the moss on trees in the Karelian taiga,” - Writes One of them. He found the trees that the moss covered the same from all sides, and even photographed two trunks standing nearby: one noticeably tilted north, the other south. Moss adjusted: grew on one tree from the north side, and on the other - from the southern. Another curious examined Moss in the Murmansk region noticed that the most moss is still on the north side of the trees, but on the stones it grows from all sides.

The fact is that mosses have no root systems, and indeed conducting fabric. If trees or herbs are able to “pull” water from the ground with roots, and then spread it throughout the plant, then moss cells receive water only from the environment: with rain, dew and fog. Therefore, shadow and humidity - so that moisture does not evaporate as fast as in the sun - for these plants really very Important.

However, the shadow and humidity in the forest can appear not only on the north side of the tree. Shadow and moisture provide many factors. This was confirmed by the Doctor of Biological Sciences Alexander Pimenov, the head of the laboratory at the Institute of Forest named after V.N. Sukachev of the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “The presence of moss from the north side of the barrel is characteristic of phytocenoses In ideal conditions: this is the middle strip of Russia, low air humidity, plains, sparse forests without a pronounced undergrowth. In such a forest, on the north side of the trees, indeed, it falls significantly less than sunlight, ”the scientist explained. But so that the northern side of the tree becomes more attractive to the moss than others, it should be lit by the sun from all other sides.

Therefore, this rule has a lot of exceptions. If we are talking about mountain, swampy, closed Forests or those where there are many shrubs and high herbs (they are in the Russian North, in the Urals, in Siberia, in the Caucasus), then the humidity is so high, and the sun is so small that the moss grows from all sides, Pimenov said. “This indicator is very conditional, and it is always impossible to use it everywhere,” the biologist summed up.

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

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