Every morning on my drive into downtown I have to take a moment to remind myself that the streets are not littered with recently flattened fauna.

When the spanish moss finally lets go from the trees, it inevitably falls into the street and gets pushed to the side along the curb, where it takes the shape of a dead animal. It's the right color for a helpless racoon or maybe someone's favorite feline, a sort of brownish gray. It is round and lumpy, yet limp like roadkill.

Spanish moss is a curious plant, and just now I decided to look up some info on it. It is not a moss, but an epiphyte: it absorbs nutrients and water from the air. (I believe mosses have to have direct contact with moisture). It is a member of the bromeliad family.

Spanish moss blooms (although I've never seen it bloom here... maybe it will bloom in the spring) producing seeds, which go airborn and stick in rough tree bark. This explains why most of the spanish moss is growing on oak trees - they have good bark for catching those seeds.

So, the next time I see a lump of spanish moss on the side of the road, I will remember that it's not even close to roadkill... since it didn't have any roots to begin with, it will happily bloom right there in the gutter.