Medicinal Monday - Moss Campion

There are more than 12,000 different types of moss that can be found throughout the world.  The oldest moss called Takakia grows high on the Tibetan Plateau and is thought to be over 350 million years old! The moss we are writing about today, Silene acaulis or Moss Campion has been estimated to reach up to 100 years in age, with the oldest known campion moss being 350 years old. Native Americans in the area have found traditional medicinal uses for this helpful plant.

About Silene Acaulis

This round ground-hugging mound of moss is known as a cushion plant. Its leaves are exposed to the elements and the flower buds are hidden between the leaves until they blossom and cover the little mound that resembles a cushion with flowers. It grows in rocky, cold windswept areas above the tree line. It can grow up to 18 " in diameter and two feet high. Under all the leaves is a sturdy taproot and a woody branched base. When this moss flowers pink flowers bloom on little stalks for several weeks in the summer. It is a very slow-growing moss that takes ten years before it blooms for the first side. The flowers are either male or female with more female flowers appearing at higher altitudes.

Photo: Matt Lavin

Medicinal and Culinary Uses

The Eskimos ate the raw root skins as a vegetable. In the Tundra and Arctic regions, Native Americans and First Peoples consumed the roots as a vegetable. The most common medicinal use was to use the plant to treat children with colic.

Photo: Matt Lavin

Did You Know...

This plant is common throughout the northern Arctic and can be found in the mountains of Maine, New Hampshire, and in the high-mountain areas of North America, Europe, and Russia. 

The U.S. Forest Service has reported studies that have shown that the temperature within a plant cushion can be up to ten degrees centigrade higher than the ambient temperature. 

Other names for this plant are cushion plant, cushion pink, or the compass plant because its flowers first appear on the southside of the plant.

Moss Campion is related to carnations.

The raw roots of this plant were consumed as a vegetable in Iceland and in the Arctic Regions.