*1: Newlyn Cliff, 1862,
WC (PNZ) (Paton 1969a:
731).
*2: Bodmin, 1888, RVT
(B) (Paton 1969a: 731).
Grows as scattered plants or forms low turfs.
Habitat notes from C&S are as follows. An ephemeral
colonist that may occur almost anywhere that bare soil is
exposed, disappearing when taller vegetation shades the soil.
Recorded in arable fields (where usually uncommon, but
occasionally abundant, with finds in fields of cereal stubble,
flax, maize stubble, set-aside and a grass-ley), gardens, on
plant pots (often common in gardens, nurseries, garden
centres, and their glasshouses), disturbed areas in grassland,
soil heaps, graves, path and track sides, roadsides,
unsurfaced car parks, 'hard-standing' areas in caravan park,
disturbed places on banks, a sand pit, stable dunes, sea-cliff
slopes, mine-spoil, china-clay pits and their spoil, stone
quarries, chinks in walls, top of a 'hedge', dredgings from
ditches, dried mud of pool edge, and clearings in heathland,
scrub and woodlands. Occurs on soils of varied textures
(gravel, sandy, loamy, clayey, humic), from moderately acidic
to basic, rather dry to moderately wet, but prefering
nutrient-rich substrates that are unshaded or only lightly to
moderately shaded. Sometimes grows on thin soil e.g. on rock
in ruined wall and over old concrete, and several records of
it in tiny crevices of granite boulders or rocks, e.g. among
china clay spoil.
As elsewhere (Southorn 1976, 1977, Brown 1982:
430), F. hygrometrica is
common on old bonfire sites, where it is characteristically
the first plant colonist and often forms dense pure turfs; it
is sometimes abundant also on heathland the year after a fire.
Other records from nutrient-enriched places include abundant
patches near Nanquidno on ground where leaking bags of silage
had stood, but it is also frequent on substrates with much
lower nutrient levels. Apparently sometimes tolerates elevated
levels of copper in substrates overlying mine-spoil or slag.
Unusual records on rotting wood in hollow of top of post (a
few plants) and on decaying woollen socks dumped in shady Grey
Willow-carr near road (plentiful, cfr).
Associates often recorded include Barbula convoluta, Barbula unguiculata,
Bryum argenteum, Bryum dichotomum, Bryum rubens, Ceratodon purpureus,
Dicranella
staphylina, Trichodon cylindricus,
Pleuridium
acuminatum, Riccia
sorocarpa, Phascum
cuspidatum, Tortula
truncata and vascular plants including Montia fontana, Sinapis arvensis, Urtica urens; in
horticultural contexts sometimes with Leptobryum pyriforme,
Marchantia
polymorpha subsp. ruderalis; less often
with many other bryophytes of partly bare soil including Didymodon umbrosus, Ditrichum lineare (on
copper-mine spoil), Entosthodon
obtusus.
F.
hygrometrica was not recorded when non-fertile because of
risk of confusion with other Funariaceae. Since all but young
plants apparently bear sporophytes it is very commonly seen
cfr; capsules immature 1-7, 9-12; dehiscing 6, 7, [8];
dehisced 1-12.