IT'S GREEN, slippery and seems to grow where you don't want it... but before you get out the shovel, consider this: moss might just be good for you.
University of Adelaide researchers have discovered a new complex carbohydrate in moss that could be good for gut health.
The scientists teamed up with American researchers from the University of Rhode Island for the study. They found the carbohydrate, or polysaccharide, looked similar to the gut-friendly beta glucan found in oats and other cereals.
The researchers took one of these similar genes from moss to see if it would lead to the production of beta glucan.
"What we found was a new polysaccharide made up of the sugars glucose and arabinose - not just glucose as in beta glucan," said lead researcher Rachel Burton from the University of Adelaide.
"We have called it arabinoglucan and believe the way the two different sugars link together will make it structurally similar to beta glucan. "We are not advocating eating moss; we are simply saying that there is great potential for this new polysaccharide as we've seen with others."
Despite the function of arabinoglucan not yet being known, Professor Burton said it may have properties that could be exploited for health.
"This discovery leads to the question: how many other polysaccharides do plants contain that we don't yet know about?"
The results were published in The Plant Cell.
