Trelai Park

From the exciting uplands of Charles' post to a boring suburban park. I only visited Trelai Park in Ely, Cardiff, on Tuesday lunchtime because ST17N needed some topping up, and also because it contains a section of the Ely riverbank. As it turned out, this was the most boring bit of Cardiff riverbank I've explored thus far, being almost completely lacking in flood zone trees and aquatic mosses. The only flood zone species I recorded was Brachythecium rivulare on a willow.

However, the trees of the park were rather good for epiphytes, with virtually all of the common species being present. The most surprising for me were some rather small tufts of O. lyellii on a birch trunk - an unusual host? The purplish gemmae are just about visible in the enlarged pic, but were very obvious through a lens.

Orthotrichum lyellii on birch

 O. lyellii is proving rather widespread in Cardiff, though generally at low frequency.

Also, can someone please put me out of my misery and tell me what the moss below is. It was growing on the base of a Sycamore in open woodland. I thought it was B. erythrophyllum at first, but the leaf margins are plane above, so I'm puzzled. The upper leaf cells are papillose. Thanks!