Renter: Existing cavities; including the hollow stems of Rubus and Phragmites (Pasteels, 1977), vacated burrows in dead wood (for example, the exit holes of the beetle Aromia moschata and the moth Cossus cossus (F. Smith, 1876)), deep crevices in soft mortar, and burrows in the soil. Unusual sites include the space between two mirrors stored on an indoor window sill in a garage (C.R. Vardy, pers. comm.), in the lead overflow pipe of a lavatory cistern in Oxford (C. O’Toole, pers. comm.) and beneath the metal cover of a telephone bell located 3m up on the outside wall of a building in Alderney, Channel Islands (N.V. Mendham, pers. comm.).
The cell walls are complete and are constructed from compacted, downy, cottony fibres, which are stripped from the leaves and stems of such plants as Stachys sylvatica, S. lanata, Achillea millefolium, Verbascum thapsus, Pelargonium, Onopordon acanthium and Sempervivum. Peeters, Raemakers & Smit additionally list Lychnis coronaria, Stachys byzantina, Ballota nigra, Echium vulgare, Arctium and Pilosella [as Hieracium pilosella] in the Netherlands.
LeGoff (pers.comm) reports that females will collect cottony pubescence from Ecinops ritro and Pulicaria vulgaris (Asteraceae) in France