Whiteish Feather-moss
What a terrible name to give to this moss – Whiteish Feather-moss. It’s usually described as yellow-green, or pale. Anyway, it was the colour and the upright stringy shoots which made me notice it in the dunes at Tentsmuir.
The shoots are slightly fluffy at the tip, because the leaf ends in a long point.
When it’s dry, it all becomes much more stringy in appearance, with the leaves tightly appressed to the stem. I need to find a picture of this.
At Tentsmuir, it was growing on the sand dunes, in company with Syntrichia ruraliformis and plants such as the Sea Pea.
I’ve also had it pointed out to me growing among lawn grass at Newhailes – much greener here.
It’s one that I’ve been trying to recognise for a while, but have sometimes got confused with pale versions of Brachythecium rutabulum. However, in the dunes it stood out. I had a last minute wobble, wondering if it might actually be Brachythecium mildeanum, which isn’t common here but is possibly under-recorded. However, under the microscope the alar cells were square and distinct, so I’m going with B. albicans.
Learning about Mosses 