A RARE moss has "flowered" in the Yorkshire Dales for the first time in more than 130 years, scientists have confirmed.

Nowell's moss, which grows on old limestone walls, has been discovered producing spores on the slopes of Pen-y-ghent, overlooking Ribblesdale.

Clumps of the endangered plant had been discovered in the dales in the past, but they were always too far apart to reproduce.

The moss was discovered in 1866 by botanist John Nowell but is not known to have been found producing spores - the plant's version of flowering - since then.

Dr Fred Rumsey, UK plant biodiversity researcher at the Natural History Museum, who is working on the dales project, was "absolutely overjoyed" at the discovery.

"I knew the history of the plant and I knew that the last person to see this was a famous botanist in the 1860s," he said.

The moss was known only to grow on old limestone walls and the researchers used earlier documents to seek out sites where it had flourished in the past.

Although patches of it were found, they were either all male or all female colonies and were too far apart to reproduce.

The green-brown moss, which bears the scientific name Zygodon Gracilis, is provisionally classified as endangered and is protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act