Tuesday 3 May 2016

Nant Cae-dudwg (Part 2)

A couple more goodies from yesterday's outing, checked microscopically tonight.

The first section of the Nant Cae-dudwg I walked along was heavily modified (see photo below), a legacy of past mining activity. The feeder stream indicated by the yellow arrow was chanelled within concrete walls, the tops of which had a nice assemblage of bryophytes.

This Schistidium elegantulum was growing among abundant S. crassipilum and looked markedly different from it, with much longer hair points. At least 6 stomata were present at the base of the capsule I sliced in half.

The blurry rear of the photo above is shown in the photo below - a shaggy mat of Hygrohypnum luridum with young sporophytes. Under the microscope, the brownish granular alar cells and incurved upper leaf margins characteristic of this species were evident.

3 comments:

  1. Very nice George. H. luridum seems to like damp concrete as I've seen it I pretty much identical situations.

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  2. Funny you should say that, H and I had a mass of it on a concrete slab at the side of the River Twrch a few days ago, and with abundant fruit. It's probably a good time to look out for it because ochraceum is dioicous and rarely fruits. The (one day!) completed distribution maps for these sister species will be fascinating - and also for other riparian genera like Hygroamblystegium and Schistidium.

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  3. Thanks both, a species to seek out on concrete close to watercourses then.

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