Identification notes
This low-growing moss has a characteristic yellowish hue when moist and, despite being quite a scarce species, can form large populations on strongly calcareous dry ground, especially in coastal areas. It also sometimes flourishes on coastal brownfield sites, where it will grow on crushed concrete and/or calcareous sand.
It often has hooded leaves – which may make you think of Trichostomum crispulum, a much commoner moss with which T. inclinata frequently grows. However, its leaves are usually longer and wider than that species and of course if you pull off an entire leaf, its base has the tell-tale Tortella ‘V-stripe’ – the abrupt partition of the hyaline basal cells from the green ones above, along a line ascending the leaf margins. Another useful field difference is the slightly undulate leaf margins –not a character of T. crispulum.
