Photo
by Dr M Lueth ©.
*1: Near Redruth, 1866, WC (PNZ) (Paton 1969a: 732).
*2: Gunwen Moor, Bodmin, 1890, RVT (B) (Paton 1969a:
732).
Grows as small patches, as scattered stems
intermixed with other bryophytes, or forms low pure turfs.
Notes on habitats in Cornwall are as follows. Typically on
acidic mineral (clayey, loamy, sandy or gritty) and humic
soils, peat, or thin soil over acidic rocks or in their
crevices, on dry to distinctly wet substrates, mainly in
unshaded or lightly or partly shaded sites. Records are mostly
from heathland, open patches in acidic grasslands, partly bare
places on 'hedges' and among granitic rocks, old quarries,
slopes near sea-cliffs, banks, track edges, stream banks,
china-clay spoil and spoil of metalliferous mines. Fewer
records were from various other habitats including soil on old
walls of ruins, bared peat of hummocks in open acidic mires,
and a partly shaded track at the edge of woodland. Atypical
records are from under overhanging granitic rocks of tors
(sparse non-fertile stems growing in heavy shade), on rotting
wood of top of fence-post in an old mine area, on soil in a
plant-pot at a nursery, and on hard concrete at base of the
leg of an electricity pylon in wet heathland. P. nutans is sometimes
plentiful on thin copper-rich soil or deeper sandy or clayey
'lithosols' over old mine-spoil. In these places it often
forms pure patches or grows from mats of Cephaloziella spp. and
is one of the few bryophyte species tolerant of high copper
concentrations in the substrates. Associated plants often
include other common acidophiles such as Campylopus
introflexus,
Polytrichum juniperinum, Polytrichum
piliferum, and grasses and low herbs. On mine areas with
high [Cu] recorded associates include Cephaloziella
massalongi, Cephaloziella
nicholsonii, Cephaloziella
stellulifera, Gymnocolea inflata, Solenostoma
gracillimum,
Lophozia excisa,
Pohlia andalusica,
Pohlia annotina.
In all of its main Cornish habitats it often
produces very large axillary bulbils (small deciduous
branches, typically 1-3 mm long, with imbricate leaves). These
are apparently not mentioned in the British literature, but
form the basis of 'stat. gemmiclada' (cf. Hegewald
1970).
Commonly or frequently c.fr.: capsules immature
1-12; dehiscing [7], 8; dehisced 1-3, 7-10.
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