*1: Trungle Moor near
Paul, 1866, WC (PNZ) (Paton 1969a:
740).
*2: Probus, 1861, ES
(TRU) (Paton 1969a:
740).
See account of P. caespitosa for notes
on occurrence of plants intermediate between P. fontana and that
species.
Grows as tufts or patches that may be extensive and
pure, forming low lawns. Notes on habitats in Cornwall are as
follows. Characteristically in damp or wet places (often at
edge of shallow trickling water) with slight to moderate base
enrichment, on soil (often humic, peaty, or clayey, or among
gravel) or in thin soil accumulations on rock (granitic,
slaty, horizontal to vertical; occasionally on concrete or old
crumbling tarmac). Most sites are open or only lightly shaded,
less often in moderate shade (once in rather heavy shade in
deciduous woodland). Habitat types in which it occurs are most
commonly flushes (often apparently acidic, on moorland, wet
heathland, cliff-slopes or in poor pastures, less often in
open deciduous woodland), gravelly or rocky tracks (e.g.
across heaths or moorland), roadside verges, ditches, beside
streams, in old mine areas, granite quarries and their spoil,
clay-pits, around old china-clay 'dries' and on newer concrete
in china-clay works, damp china-clay spoil, with single
records from a disused railway cutting, a woodland clearing,
moist peat of heathland on the Lizard, on a rock emergent from
a stream and tarmac of a sheltered lane. An unusual record was
of a patch in a wheat stubble field (CDP). Associates recorded
include Aneura
pinguis, Archidium
alternifolium, Brachythecium
rivulare, Bryum
alpinum, Bryum
pallens, Bryum
pseudotriquetrum, Calliergonella
cuspidata, Chiloscyphus pallescens, Trichodon cylindricus,
Fossombronia
incurva, Pellia
neesiana, Pohlia
annotina, Pohlia
melanodon, Pohlia
wahlenbergii var.
wahlenbergii, Platyhypnidium
riparioides, Riccardia
chamedryfolia, Riccia sorocarpa; Equisetum palustre, Eriophorum
angustifolium, Juncus effusus, Molinia
caerulea.
One record cfr, capsules immature
6.