Kingdom Plantae Class Bryopsida Family Ditrichaceae Rank Species | Division Bryophyta Order Dicranales Genus Ditrichum | |
Similar Thamnobryum angustifolium, Ditrichum, Epipactis helleborine var youn, Bryum warneum, Ditrichaceae | ||
Ditrichum cornubicum, commonly known as the Cornish path-moss, is a moss endemic to Cornwall, United Kingdom. First discovered in 1963, on a roadside west of Lanner, Cornwall by Jean Paton, it has since been found in two other places within Cornwall. It was published as new to science in 1976.
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Distribution and habitat
In 1963, a local bryologist Jean Paton, found an unknown specimen at a roadside to the west of Lanner, near Redruth, in west Cornwall. It was on mine spoil used to surface a small roadside lay-by. It has not been re-found at Lanner but two years later, in 1965 she found the same species at a disused copper mine on the south-east edge of Bodmin Moor at Minions. In 1997 David Holyoak found another population nearby at Crow's Nest. A small population discovered in west Cork, Ireland is likely to have been an accidental introduction from Cornwall.
Ecology
The moss is not tolerant of competition from other plants and grows on compacted, sparsely vegetated ground, usually besides or on old paths or tracks. Occasionally on banks and or the crevices of an old wall. The soils are humic or loamy, well drained and acid with a pH of 5.5 – 5.8. It likes a metal-rich substrate with concentrations of copper of 151 – 1400 parts per million (ppm). As the metals slowly leach out of the soil by weathering other mosses can colonise and out-compete D cornubicum. These mosses include Rhytidiadelphus squarrosus and Ceratodon purpureus.