Beaked beardless moss  (Weissia rostellata)

This moss has always been considered as very scarce in Britain, and is believed to have declined (4), as it has disappeared from more than a third of recorded sites since 1950 (2). Recent records of this species come from Lothian to Anglesey and Dorset, and are thinly spread (3). In continental Europe, it has a scattered distribution from southern Norway and Sweden in the north, to France, Italy and Slovenia in the south, reaching as far east as the Ukraine (3).

This moss grows on damp soil or drying mud at the edges of reservoirs and pools, when the water recedes during summer and autumn. It also occurs in patches of bare soil by rivers (3), and in arable fields and damp grassland (4).