1.
moss
Small, soft green plants that grow in dense mats on rocks, trees, and damp ground.
Moss carries strong aesthetic associations in Japan — age, stillness, and the beauty of things that take time (侘び寂び).
Common collocations
- 苔が生える - moss grows (on something)
- 苔に覆われる - to be covered in moss
- 苔むす - to become mossy with age (literary; the phrase in the national anthem, 「苔のむすまで」, means 'until the stones grow moss')
Types
- 蘚類 (true mosses)
- 苔類 (liverworts)
- 地衣類 (lichens - often lumped in colloquially)
Compounds
- 苔玉 (moss ball, a decorative planting)
- 苔寺 (moss temple, the nickname of 西芳寺 in Kyoto)
Cultural note
Moss is cultivated rather than removed in a 日本庭園, where a 苔-covered 石 or 庭 signals a garden that has been tended for generations. Note that the English proverb 'a rolling stone gathers no moss' is used in Japanese with the same wording but often the opposite reading: for many speakers it praises the moss, not the motion.