Mesoptychia badensis Scarce Notchwort

A small, pale-green, dioicous, Arctic-montane leafy liverwort which occurs on calcareous rock in damp or humid acreas in woodland or on base-rich soils, dune slacks and forest tracks. Like other notchworts it has bilobed leaves but the lobes are quite blunt and shallow. Unlike the similar Mesoptychia turbinata, whose leaves have a narrow base, the leaf bases of Mesoptychia badensis are decurrent and run down the stem. It exhibits the typical distribution of a calcicole in Britain, but it is rather scarce in Wales where it occurs mostly along the calcareous coastline of southeast Wales and along forest road habitats further inland. In West Galmorgan all records are from forest roads in Neath Port Talbot that have been dressed with calcareous gravel. Sporophytes have not been recorded in Britain.