*1: Trevaylor,
Penzance, 1919, HHK & WEN
(CGE) (Paton 1969a:
714).
*2: Silted bank of
River Fal, Tregony, Apr. 1958, TL (Warburg 1961: 159, Paton
1969a: 714).
Habitat notes from C&S are as follows. A
colonist of more or less bare soil (clay, silt or loam) that
is neutral to moderately acidic, disappearing when larger
plants shade the surface heavily. Most frequently occurs
intermixed with other small mosses, but forms low pure lawns
at times. Habitats commonly recorded include soil heaps and
other disturbed soil, bare patches in pastures, gardens,
arable fields (fallow, barley, wheat, cereal stubbles, bulbs
and other flowers, flax and Brassica fields,
set-aside, grass-leys), soil on roadsides, banks, paths or old
tracks, damp field gateways and drying mud in and near
ditches. Also recorded from soil in churchyards and
cemeteries, in crevice of old 'hedge', on soil dumped on
'hedge', amongst mine-spoil, on stream banks and in woodland
clearings, and on drying sediments beside pools and reservoirs
(including sites that remain flooded in some years). Mainly in
unshaded sites, but sometimes partly to well shaded by bushes
or trees (e.g. on ride in conifer plantation), or in rather
heavy shade beneath crops or herbaceous weeds. Associates
commonly include Barbula convoluta, Barbula
unguiculata, Bryum
argenteum, Bryum
dichotomum, Bryum
dichotomum, Bryum
rubens, Ceratodon
purpureus, Dicranella staphylina,
Riccia sorocarpa, Phascum cuspidatum,
Tortula truncata;
others recorded include Anthoceros
punctatus,
Aphanorrhegma patens, Bryum
klinggraeffii,
Bryum violaceum,
Dicranella schreberiana, Dicranella varia, Entosthodon
fascicularis,
Ephemerum minutissimum, Ephemerum serratum,
Epipterygium
tozeri, Fossombronia
incurva,
Fossombronia pusilla, Leptobryum
pyriforme,
Leptodictyum riparium, Microbryum rectum, Phaeoceros laevis, Pohlia annotina, Pohlia camptotrachela,
Pohlia drummondii,
Pohlia lutescens,
Pseudephemerum
nitidum, Riccia
glauca, Riccia
sorocarpa and
Riccia subbifurca. Often also with herbaceous weeds such
as Cerastium
glomeratum, Lamium
purpureum, Stellaria media, Veronica persica.
Unusual records: growing with Ceratodon purpureus on
decaying fabric lying on soil of old mine area (also on soil
nearby); on thin soil on bark of felled saplings in wood
pile.
Usually with rhizoidal tubers. Not seen c.fr. [Atlas states capsules
rare; no Cornish record of sporophytes; seen with archegonia
and perichaetial lvs: 10,
11].
