One day this past summer I got to visit a rainforest.

Okay, that's licorice fern.

That is, the scientific name is polypodium vulgari.

I was there with aologist, Nelini Natkarni.

This is called selaginella. This is called, this is a club moss.

It's actually a very primitive plant.

Nelini has been studying and exploring ecosystems like this for 35 years.

Okay, so that is called dichranum. That's another species of moss.

I like to call it plushy moss.

Just because it's so soft and so plushy, so much like a little pillow.

Here's high-wattcoming flundens.

This is raccomy trim.

There's like three, four different species of moss right there.

A couple other things about this rainforest.

You're probably thinking rainforest, so tropics.

Nah, we were in the Pacific Northwest, Olympic National Forest in Washington State.

And it's called a temperate rainforest. A rainforest because we get,

it's characterized by having a lot of rainfall.

There are about 120 inches of rain a year.

The other thing about this trip to the forest is that all these plants?

So see how soft these mosses are?

Yes, don't you just want to sleep on them?

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