Elachista regificella

Restricted by its larval foodplant, great wood-rush, Luzula sylvatica, which is a plant of acidic, often damp woodlands and is patchily distributed (though can be common where it occurs) in Somerset; it is often found in shade, but the moth is said to prefer locations where the foodplant grows in sunny glades or banks.  Six records from Exmoor, two of mines from Knaplock Wood/Tarr Steps in 2023 and four fairly recent ones from around Porlock; there must be many potential sites on Exmoor and it is quite common just over the county border around Lynmouth.  In VC6, the moth's distribution matches the foodplant; there are clusters of the foodplant along the Wiltshire border around Stourhead (mines common, at least in West End Wood, in 2023), in the East Mendips (one record from Hurdlestone Wood, Stoke St Michael, in 2023) and around Bristol (found new to science at Brislington in the late 1840s and two records in the 1906 Victoria County History).