Tortella nitida Neat Crisp-moss

A dark-green, dioicous, acrocarpous moss which forms tight, shiny cushions on sunny limestone outcops, usually near the coast but also on walls and on limestone pavement. Like some other Tortella species the leaves become tightly curled when dry and many of them lose their tips. It is a Mediterranean-Atlantic species with a largely southern and almost exclusively western distribution in Britain. It is fairly widespread on calcareous substrates in parts of west and north Wales, locally frequent in Gower and occasional on walls and other cacareous structures in Neath Port Talbot. Sporophyte capsules are unknown in Britain.