*1: Sunset Wood, Kea
near Truro, 1840, EAW
(TRU) (Paton 1969a: 711).
*2: Trehane, W. of
Probus, 1852, ES (TRU) (Paton 1969a:
711).
Habitat notes from C&S are as follows.
Typically forms patches or lawns on well drained, acidic soils
(humic or mineral) in open sites, partly shaded, or sometimes
more heavily shaded in deciduous woodland or edges of conifer
plantations. Typical sites are on banks and slopes in or at
edges of woodland or groves, and among rocks (of varied acidic
lithologies; sometimes in crevices or on thin soil over rock),
on stream and riverbanks, laneside banks, on tops or sides of
'hedges' and in or near old quarries. Also recorded locally on
heathland, on heathy short-grassland, or rocky areas of old
copper mine spoil, sometimes on china clay spoil or track
edges or slopes near quarries; on old graves in churchyards,
on wide wall tops and on track of disused railway. Apparently
avoids really exposed places on sea-cliffs, but present
locally on more sheltered cliff tops, etc. Atypical records
include finds on wet ground inside carr of Grey Willow (where
it would have been taken for non-fertile Polytrichum commune if
not checked microscopically), on hummock in acidic mire and on
damp heavily shaded wall of a ruined china-clay dry. Commonly
in pure patches, other plants growing intermixed or close by
often include Dicranum
scoparium, Kindbergia praelonga,
Polytrichum
juniperinum, grasses, sometimes adjoining Polytrichum commune at
edge of wet hollows. Metzgeria consanguinea
once recorded growing as epiphyte on old stems of this
species.Unusual record of small patch growing as epiphyte 1.5
m above ground on horizontal bough of Grey Willow in
carr.
Frequently c.fr.: capsules immature 1-5, 7, 11, 12;
dehiscing 7; dehisced [old: 1-2],
7-12.
