Cerastium fontanum
Ecology
A tufted or mat-forming perennial herb found in a wide range of, usually fertile, habitats including neutral pastures and meadows, calcareous and acidic grassland, fen-meadows, rush-pastures, heaths and mires, springs and flushes, montane grassland, rocks and ledges, sand dunes and shingle, cultivated ground, waste places and walls. 0-1220 m (Aonach Beag, Westerness).
Status
Trends
The distribution is similar to that in the 1962 Atlas. Subsp. vulgare and subsp. holosteoides are common throughout the range of the species, although the latter is more frequent in the north; subsp. scoticum is mapped separately.
World Distribution
Eurosiberian Boreo-temperate element, but widely naturalised so that distribution is now Circumpolar Boreo-temperate.
Broad Habitats
Light (Ellenberg): 7
Moisture (Ellenberg): 5
Reaction (Ellenberg): 5
Nitrogen (Ellenberg): 4
Salt Tolerance (Ellenberg): 0
January Mean Temperature (Celsius): 3.5
July Mean Temperature (Celsius): 14.4
Annual Precipitation (mm): 1106
Height (cm): 30
Perennation - primary
Life Form - primary
Woodiness
Clonality - primary
Clonality - secondary
Count of 10km squares in Great Britain: 2805
Count of 10km squares in Ireland: 985
Count of 10km squares in the Channel Isles: 14
Atlas Change Index: 1.4
Weighted Changed Factor: -73
Weighted Change Factor Confidence (90%)
JNCC Designations
Atlas text references
Atlas (68b)
.
1988. Comparative Plant Ecology.
.
1986. Atlas of north European vascular plants north of the Tropic of Cancer. 3 vols.
Jalas & Suominen (1983)
.
1969. Biology of the mouse-ear chickweed, Cerastium vulgatum. The Michigan Botanist. 8:151-157.