Noted on the damp rocks of the Knab car park SS63008742 during a chip shop stop. I'm assuming this is just
aspera, but the clumps of gemmae on the leaf tips looked conspicuously dark brown through the lens, rather than the bright green of
aspera I've seen previously. The plants were all very small, in fact the shoots were not much wider than the
Lejeunea cavifolia it was growing with. The antical lobes appeared not to be particularly decurrent, which I assume is atypical of
aspera?
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car park cliff with lots of liverwort-rich clumps,
many with abundant L. cavifolia |
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| base of antical lobe only weakly decurrent |
There is no mention of brown gemmae in s aspera in the books. The lobes look the right shape for S cuspiduligera and there doesn't appear to be a sharp keel, with many lobes not appressed. I suspect you've got the third vc 41 record of Scapania cuspiduligera but please hang on to the specimen.
ReplyDeletePS I've just worked out from your Grid Ref where this colony is. Surely you have relocated Jeff Duckett's original Mumbles colony of Scap cusp! Fantastic!!
ReplyDeleteWow that really is fantastic. I did consider that but wasn't totally convinced for some reason. There's not much of a specimen left as I only grabbed one small clump whilst giving Alfie a quick leg stretch, plus I've now pulled much of it apart, but there is at least one good shoot left. I'll collect a better specimen next time I treat myself to a Gower Breakfast.
ReplyDeleteWell done Barry. You're finishing the year on a high!
ReplyDeleteThat new photo is really excellent. It looks really good for S cuspiduligera.
ReplyDelete