A few days at the end of Gower

Just after New Year I spent three very agreeable days with family and friends based at a bunkhouse near the end of Gower. The weather was kind and we spent a lot of time outside, which led to a few unplanned bryophyte encounters. I also did some more structured recording on Hardings Down, only a short walk from our base.

My personal highlight was a poke around in Bessie's Meadow on a walk up Rhossili Down. I had Porella obtusata in mind and had looked up Barry's grid reference beforehand, and it proved surprisingly easy to find it on two of the Old Red Sandstone conglomerate boulders - thus doubling the number of known rocks in VC41 that support it. As Barry pointed out there are many rocks left to search here, so there may well be further patches.

Nearby were some lovely patches of Pterogonium gracile, this being one of only two sites in the county with modern records.

I checked all the ORS exposures on Hardings Down but couldn't find anything of particular interest, though I have a Grimmia sample which is probably just trichophylla. More surprising were two patches of Dicranum majus on the north-facing banks of the lowest of the three Iron Age forts (SS436908), this being new for SS49 and only the 2nd Gower record (the other is from Cefn Bryn in 1989).

Elsewhere, some Pleuridium subulatum on a soil bank at the edge of a field near Llangennith was also new for SS49.