*1: Fallow field W. of
Mousehole, Mar. 1960, JAP & AJES (BBSUK) (Warburg 1961: 168, Paton
1969a: 732).
*2: Marshy ground
beside lane S. of Blisland, N. of Bodmin, Aug. 1962, JAP
(BBSUK) (Warburg 1963b: 498, Paton 1969a:
732).
See the notes under E. serratum and
Holyoak (2010b). Somewhat under-recorded because Ephemerum in arable
fields often lacked mature spores so were placed only as Ephemerum serratum s.
l.
Grows as small patches of protonemata a few
centimetres across, from which the very small and scattered or
more or less clustered gametophores arise. Notes on habitats
in C&S are as follows. E. minutissimum is commoner inCornwall
than E. serratum, and unlike
that species it occurs widely on arable land. It colonises
bare soil surfaces (of clayey, silty or loamy texture,
including compressed soil on path edges; of mildly acidic to
circumneutral reaction; often where damp, in mainly unshaded
places, sometimes where partly shaded e.g. by grasses or Grey
Willows). It is common in arable fields (cereal, stubble, flax
stubble, bulbfield, fallow) and frequent on exposed patches of
soil in pastures, grassy edges of Juncus marshes and
grass leys, with records also from soil heaps, disturbed soil
on old metalliferous mine areas, edges of paths and damp
tracks (including those on and above sea-cliffs and in old
metalliferous mine areas), a churchyard and a bank in a
cemetery. There is a single record from fine-grained sediment
exposed in the inundation zone beside Stithians Reservoir, a
habitat type more typical of E. serratum, which was
present nearby. E. minutissimum tends to
grow in small pure patches on otherwise bare surfaces.
Associated species recorded in close proximity
include Anthoceros
punctatus, Atrichum
undulatum, Barbula
convoluta, Bryum
dichotomum, Bryum
rubens, Bryum
violaceum, Dicranella
schreberiana, Dicranella staphylina,
Trichodon
cylindricus, Fossombronia pusilla,
Phaeoceros laevis,
Pleuridium
acuminatum, Pseudephemerum
nitidum, Riccia
glauca, Riccia
subbifurca, Phascum
cuspidatum, Tortula
truncata; more rarely Acaulon mediterraneum,
Anthoceros
agrestis, Ephemerum
sessile, Fossombronia
wondraczekii, Solenostoma
gracillimum, Pleuridium subulatum.
Commonly also near grasses and low
herbs.
Mature spores are needed for identification, but
capsules apparently develop on almost all female gametophores.
Capsules immature 1-3, 9-12; ripe 2-4 [5],
8-12.
