Identification notes
Handsome Woollywort? There is no doubt that this beautiful and immediately recognisable leafy liverwort has a highly appropriate name.
It can be tricky to find in some areas though, even where it isn’t too uncommon. The key to tracking down Trichocolea is, as with so many bryophytes, finding its very specific kind of habitat and then just looking for it.
It’s always in a shaded wet place, typically where there is some surface water movement, such as in mineral-rich woodland flushes or seepage lines, or in permanently wet ground of the banks of small streams. If there is lots of Hookeria lucens and Chrysosplenium oppositifolium nearby you’ll be in the right kind of place. Trichocolea is really quite fussy about where it chooses to live – it doesn’t like places where the pH is too low, or too high, or where the water flows too strongly. Get the conditions just right, though and the chances are there will be lots of it.
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