Briar Moss

Briar Moss, once known as 'Roach', is a fictional character from Tamora Pierce's quartets Circle of Magic and The Circle Opens as well as the stand-alone The Will of the Empress.

Briar is of unknown, multiracial parentage. He is described as having curly black hair and brown skin, typical to natives of Sotat, his birthland, but with a Western nose and light, gray-green eyes.

Background

Briar Moss was, in early life, a street rat called 'Roach'. In The Circle of Magic quartet, he is about 10; in The Circle Opens quartet, he's 14; and in The Will of the Empress, Briar is 18. His mother was killed when he was approximately four, and he was recruited by a gang, the Lightnings, led by the 'Thief-Lord', in Deadman's District in Hajra. He was caught three times, receiving a tattoo of an X on the webbing between each thumb and forefinger for the first two; on the third he was sentenced to life at the docks. A great mage, Niklaren Goldeye, had a vision that he would find special mages—mages whose ambient powers were not easily discernible by the usual means—and as such was there, as he needed to be, during Briar's trial. He was able to detect the boy's psychic affinity with plants, and took him to Winding Circle Temple to be educated in plant magic.

Moss

Mosses are small flowerless plants that typically grow in dense green clumps or mats, often in damp or shady locations. The individual plants are usually composed of simple, one-cell thick leaves, attached to a stem that may be branched or unbranched and has only a limited role in conducting water and nutrients. Although some species have vascular tissue this is generally poorly developed and structurally different from similar tissue found in other plants. They do not have seeds and after fertilisation develop sporophytes (unbranched stalks topped with single capsules containing spores). They are typically 0.2–10 cm (0.1–3.9 in) tall, though some species are much larger, like Dawsonia, the tallest moss in the world, which can grow to 50 cm (20 in) in height.

Mosses are commonly confused with lichens, hornworts, and liverworts. Lichens may superficially look like mosses, and have common names that include the word "moss" (e.g., "reindeer moss" or "iceland moss"), but are not related to mosses. Mosses, hornworts, and liverworts are collectively called "bryophytes". Bryophytes share the property of having the haploid gametophyte generation as the dominant phase of the life cycle. This contrasts with the pattern in all "vascular" plants (seed plants and pteridophytes), where the diploid sporophyte generation is dominant.

Mossé

Mossé is a French family name:

Mossø

Mossø is Denmark's third largest freshwater lake and Jutland's largest, as measured by surface area. The lake is located just east of the city of Skanderborg in east Jutland, but is part of both Skanderborg Municipality and Horsens Municipality. Mossø lies in the middle of the area and landscape known as Søhøjlandet (English: The Lake-highland).

There is a small lake named Mossø in the forest of Rold Skov in Himmerland.

Nature

Both ospreys and white-tailed eagle is regularly observed at Mossø and the later have recently established here as a breeding bird, which is rare in Denmark.

Mossø is part of the 4,470 ha Natura 2000 protection area, designated as number 52. The lake is also designated as an international bird protection area, with number F35.

References

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