Moss Medicine

A comprehensive illustrated guide to bryophytes

• Explores more than 600 species of the bryophyte family of plants—mosses, liverworts, and hornworts—in text and full-color photos

• Shows the ways that indigenous peoples around the world have traditionally used mosses and other bryophytes for food preservation, clothing, and medicine

• Details scientific research on the potency of bryophyte compounds and terpenoids as well as their antiviral, antimicrobial, antifungal, and anti-cancer properties

In this comprehensive book, master herbalist Robert Dale Rogers reveals the unique healing benefits of bryophytes—the family of plants that includes mosses, liverworts, and hornworts. These plants are some of the oldest on our planet, and recently they have been recognized by science for their antiviral, antimicrobial, and anti-cancer properties.

Bryophytes have no vascular tissue and no roots. Found on all continents in a wide range of climates, they survive—and thrive—by extracting moisture and nutrients directly from the air. Using full-color photographic examples, Rogers presents more than 600 species of bryophytes through the lenses of ethnobotany, folklore, chemistry, and pharmacology, and he shares their healing applications in homeopathy and aromatherapy.

Rogers explains how Indigenous people all over the world have used bryophytes for millennia for food preservation, clothing, insulation, and medicine. He then compares the three types of bryophytes with scientific research on the medicinal effects of their chemical compounds, showing that mosses, liverworts, and hornworts can be used in herbal preparations, homeopathic remedies, and essential oils for common ailments.

He also explains that bryophytes have environmental benefits, such as in the sequestration of carbon and the phyto-remediation of our increasingly polluted planet, revealing how these ancient plants have supported humanity for eons—and, fortunately for us, continue to do so.