Physcomitrium patens, also known by its former name Physcomitrella patens and the common name spreading earthmoss, is a moss species in the family Funariaceae. It is an early colonist of exposed mud and bare earth around the edges of pools of water and has a scattered distribution across temperate regions of the world except South America. It is valued as a model organism because it undergoes highly efficient homologous recombination, letting scientists perform precise gene targeting and create knockout strains, a capability rare among multicellular organisms, and it is used to study plant evolution, development and physiology since mosses and vascular plants share fundamental genetic and physiological processes despite diverging early in land plant evolution.
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