Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) is a flowering plant that grows upon larger trees, commonly the Southern Live Oak (Quercus virginiana) or Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum) in the southeastern United States.
The plant's specific name usneoides means "resembling Usnea", and it indeed closely resembles its namesake Usnea, also known as beard lichen, but in fact Spanish moss is not biologically related to either mosses or lichens. Instead, it is an angiosperm in the family Bromeliaceae (the bromeliads) that grows hanging from tree branches in full sun or partial shade. Formerly this plant has been placed in the genera Anoplophytum, Caraguata, and Renealmia. Its natural range is from Virginia Beach, Virginia in the southeastern United States to Argentina, growing wherever the climate is warm enough and has a relatively high average humidity. It has been introduced to similar locations around the world, including Hawaii and Australia.
The plant consists of a slender stem bearing alternate thin, curved or curly, heavily scaled leaves 2–6 cm (0.79–2.4 in) long and 1 mm (0.039 in) broad, that grow vegetatively in chain-like fashion (pendant) to form hanging structures up to 6 m (240 in) in length. The plant has no aerial roots and its flowers are tiny and inconspicuous. It propagates both by seed and vegetatively by fragments that blow on the wind and stick to tree limbs, or are carried by birds as nesting material.
Read more about Spanish Moss: Ecology, Spanish Moss in Culture and Folklore, Human Uses, Gallery
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Dude: That’s nearly right. Only it’s “Borracho.”
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—Jules Furthman (1888–1960)
“We talked between the Rooms—
Until the Moss had reached our lips—
And covered up—our names—”
—Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)