At the zoo

"Someone told me it's all happening at the zoo.  I do believe it, I do believe it's true"

A visit to Bristol Zoo with Bea and Johnny gave me the chance to check on the Antitrichia patch that I found several years ago on a Paulownia tree by the Prairie Dog enclosure.  The Prairie Dogs have been replaced by a Pudu, but the tree is still there and so is a scrappy patch of Antitrichia.

I looked at the Zoo's bryophytes in reasonable detail with Richard Lansdown (whilst our then toddling daughters kept themselves entertained) a few months after spotting the Antitrichia, so I didn't do any other recording today.  However, I noticed a patch of pale moss on top of a Tree-fern and thought that might be worth a look.  Sure enough, it was Leptotheca gaudichaudii - one of the more regular Tree-fern aliens in Britain and Ireland.  I haven't noticed this moss or the Tree-ferns at the Zoo before, but I think it's an area I've bypassed before.