Back to Cwm Parc and other things

In an effort to get SS99N up to a respectable number, we spent a misty afternoon in the plantation above Cwm Park (RCT) - don't get excited! There's been quite a lot clear felling up there, so it's all in a bit of a mess at the moment. The forest road was disappointing, but some extensive patches of Campylium protensum were interesting and of course some nice patches of ubiquitous Colura. The total for the tetrad now stands at 76 which is probably a fair representation for the area.
Twenty minutes in a small arable patch near Margam Park  (SS88C) was more fun with Riccia glauca (and sorocarpa), Physcomitrium pyriforme, Tortula modica (and truncata), Phascum cuspidatum, Dicranella staphylina, frequent patches of Leptobryum pyriforme and Bryum rubens and lots of the other usual suspects. Because arable land is so rare in NPT, it is a joy to find even a small patch like this. The new total for the tetrad is a disappointing 68, so a bit more work in order there.

Riccia glauca in arable plot near Margam Park

Physcomitrium pyriforme in arable plot near Margam Park

A casual stop at the side of the road at Ynysygerwn, near Aberdulais, yielded a fabulous population of Riccia sorocarpa growing on some bare earth beneath a young Cherry tree.

Riccia sorocarpa, Ynysygerwn

We've spent some time recently trying to nail those little Bryum erythrocarpum agg. specimens that are so common along forest roads. Our data is imperfect but Bryum ruderale seems to be well represented although B. violaceum and B. subapiculatum are also out there.

All gone pear-shaped

Leptobryum pyriforme in the garden, Gorseinon

Physcomitrium pyriforme on a bund at the top of the saltmarsh, Llanrhidian

Tywyn Point scraped slack

Following yesterday's meeting at the offices of RAF Pembrey Sands, we were taken out onto the range, though time was limited as a Tornado was scheduled to come in for bombing practice. Richard Pryce and myself managed to sneak off for 15 minutes to do some recording in the southern ⅓ of the rectangular scraped slack (clearly visible on the Google aerial at SN365048[corrected]). The scrape was still quite barren, particularly bryologically, but the southern margin was found to be a little richer and Amblyodon dealbatus was among the 12 species recorded, with occasional non-fruiting plants found growing all along the 30m southern edge of the scrape. The Carms flora shows the species is already known from the site and was last recorded there by Sam in 2004 (I'm not sure if there have been subsequent visits since publication). I've asked Richard to send me a couple of habitat pics for reference...[Richard's photos now added below, apologies for my mugshot being included, but it shows the scrape edge habitat where the Amblyodon was found perfectly]

Of less significance, but equally as interesting was a small population of Leptobryum pyriforme, this being the first time I have encountered the species in a dune slack. Plants were a little shorter than typical, but the tufted shoot tips, lack of an expanded leaf base and the presence of abundant rhizoidal gemmae (including some around the stem bases) seems to make identification safe in the absence of capsules, but happy to be corrected. The lower two images show the cell structure and the interesting surface sculpturing of the tubers - I can't find very good images of these on line to compare with, but they seem to match illustrations well.

Nant Cae-dudwg

In February I made a start on ST09W by visiting the spoil tips north of Cilfynydd. In a blog post at the time (see here) I mentioned that I was saving the Nant Cae-dudwg (in the same tetrad) for when I had a little more time, and being lucky enough to have a few spare hours this morning I thought it was about time I paid this area a visit.

 

I walked the length of the footpath within ST0992, which runs along the north bank of the stream through both wooded and open areas. After feeling a bit rusty for the first hour (I hadn't done any square bashing for 6 weeks) things picked up and by the time I'd reached the NE corner of the monad a good list of taxa had been accumulated, albeit with nothing of special interest. The highlights up to this point were a few plants of Colura calyptrifolia on willow (the spindly diagonal trunk in front of the holly in the photo below) and quite a lot of Physcomitrium pyriforme (photo) on a ditch bank alongside the access track.

 

I was about to head back but a stony flush in the woodland across the stream caught my eye so I waded across for a look. There was no obvious excitement here, but nearby a rotten ash log was covered in Nowellia curvifolia and Riccardia palmata (photo).

A few metres further on another rotten log had more Riccardia and quite a lot of Trichocolea tomentella, which extended beyond the log over quite a large area, looking rather fetching among the marsh marigolds.

75 species were recorded in the field and I still have plenty of samples to go through, so along with the almost entirely different flora of the coal tips this tetrad will now be up to a pretty respectable total.

Leptobryum pyriforme

Leptobryum pyriforme, Jersey Marine

I've only ever seen Leptobryum pyriforme in a flower pot before today so I was pleased this afternoon when we found large amounts of it on a weedy bank on the Amazon site in Jersey Marine. It appears to be uncommon in Glamorgan and Wales in general, yet it has a globally widespread distribution in temperate and boreal ecosystems. Non-fruiting material might go unnoticed in ruderal communities among lookalikes such as Trichodon cylindricus and Dicranella schreberiana (also on the Amazon site). In fruit, with those Bryum-like, pear-shaped capsules, it is unmistakable. 

Pyriform ditch

I spent part of Thursday's lunch break looking for bryos in a ditch by the entrance track to Median Farm.  The most obvious moss there was Physcomitrium pyriforme, fruiting abundantly.  Alongside it was a narrow-leaved Dicranoid moss with yellowish setae that looked wrong for Dicranella heteromalla but I couldn't work it out.  Eventually I found a single unripe pear-shaped capsule and noticed that the lower parts of the shoots had red rhizoids and gemmae.  It was Leptobryum pyriforme: an uncommon and totally unpredictable moss in S Wales.  Pohlia camptotrachela and Fossombronia wondraczekii were also in there, and a Sycamore sported some Orthotrichum stramineum and O lyellii.