*1: Near Redruth, 1861,
WC (PNZ) (Paton 1969a: 735).
*2: Near Probus, ES
(TRU) (Stackhouse 1865, Paton 1969a:
735).
Grows as scattered stems, often mixed with other
bryophytes, or forming small patches, less often more
extensive low lawns. Notes on habitats in C&S are as
follows. Occurs on mineral soil in wide range of situations,
on clay, silt, sand, loams or gravelly textures (occasionally
on humic soils), of moderately acidic to basic reaction. These
are in rather dry or more often damp places, usually where
unshaded, less often part-shaded e.g. by bushes and trees or
by banks. Records are from coastal cliffs (especially in
flushes), paths and tracks through grassland on
calcareous-dunes, inland banks, soil heaps, heathland paths
and tracks, in crevices of walls, adjacent to old concrete,
cattle-trampled area in a wet pasture, a tussock on marshy
ground, disturbed area on a roadside verge, on a 'hedge', on
ditch and stream banks, mud of a dried pool and upper parts of
reservoir inundation-zones. It is frequent on old
metalliferous mining areas, on paths, tracks, walls and banks
of spoil, and on alluvium of streams draining from mines,
where it undoubtedly tolerates substrates with at least
moderately high levels of copper and other metals. Grows in
open or partly bare patches or mixed with other plants in
short vegetation. Associates recorded include e.g. Brachythecium
rivulare, Bryum
alpinum, Phaeoceros
laevis, Philonotis
fontana, Physcomitrium
pyriforme, Pohlia
andalusica, Pohlia
annotina, Pohlia
wahlenbergii var.
wahlenbergii, Pseudephemerum
nitidum; also grasses, Juncus
effusus.
At least some populations have fragile stems so
that vegetative reproduction presumably occurs from deciduous
shoot tips. Filamentous axillary gemmae occur rarely in
British populations (Holyoak 2004) but have been recorded only
once from C&S (near Three Gates, vc2, SX28E, 1972, JAP,
BBSUK C.2001.019.9715).
Not previously reported c.fr. in Cornwall. Capsules rare:
immature 4 (Brea Addit), present 6.