Common Tamarisk-moss.

This large moss, looking like a cross between a fern and a feather, was one of the first that I could spot with confidence.  I’ve most often seen it in mixed woodland, where it grows over the ground or covers stumps and fallen tree branches.

Its branches are tri-pinnately divided, and the stem looks sturdy.  Overall, it has quite a stiff feel.  The book says that the stems “are covered with a felt of tiny, branched filaments and very broad, heart-shaped or triangular, opaque, longitudinally ridged, acute-tipped leaves, about 1.25 mm long”.   Don’t think you can see that in the photograph here, but maybe in the next one.

The branch leaves are in one plane.  They’re narrower and shorter and get smaller towards the tip of the shoot.

It can branch off at sharp angles.

Lovely moss.  It completely carpets the ground in “the den” above Kettle.