Native American Use

• The soft gray strands of Spanish moss cover a tough fibrous material. Native Americans used these inner fibers to make coarse cloth, ropes and scouring material. They also used Spanish moss during the process of firing clay pottery.
  
  

European Settlement

• According to South Carolina's Beaufort County Library, early European settlers used a mixture of mud and moss to fill in spaces between the logs in their cabins and kept pieces of dried moss as kindling to start fires. In addition to feeding Spanish moss to livestock, settlers also used the herb as a highly-prized mattress filler material because cool air could penetrate the moss filaments.
  
  

20th and 21st Century

• Florists often pack Spanish moss around the bases of cut flowers to hold in moisture. Artists and craftspeople use the material for a variety of handicrafts. Spanish moss is also useful as gardening mulch and packing material, and as a filler for upholstery, potholes or puddles.