Wisley Wonderland

During a visit to Wisley Royal Horticultural Society Garden during a pre-Christmas family get-together, we came across a wall constructed from lumps of tufa outside the alpine greenhouses. The range of calcicoles (clearly long-established) was quite impressive and I was surprised to see a few species outside of their normal range, e.g. Preissia quadrata, Tortella tortuosa and Leicolea badensis which I guess will have been introduced with the rock. Several of the more interesting species of these aren't shown on the NBN and Preissia appears to be unrecorded in Surrey. Whilst this is a largely introduced community, those species that are thriving would seem worthy of documenting.

Tranch Pyle old lime works

The white substrate of this old lime works always glares and demands attention whenever browsing satellite images of this area. In recent years Paul Roberts has found species there such as Dactylorhiza incarnata subsp. coccinea and Pyrola rotundifolia subsp. maritima highlighting good potential and it's been on my hit list of places to look for bryophytes. As I had to abandon Kenfig yesterday due to the thunderstorms, I decided to pop in for an hour during which time the rain thankfully turned to sunshine. Obviously the orchids had long gone over, but the Pyrola was still flowering and other prominent vasculars included additional dune slack species such as Salix repens and Molinia, plus quite a lot of Succisa, so an interesting mix. The sward was largely open with expanses of sparsely vegetated ground (click for video) dominated by bryos and species noted (in decreasing levels of abundance) included:

Trichostomum crispulum

Leiocolea badensis

Preissia quadrata

Dicranella varia

Didymodon fallax

Bryum dichotomum

Pellia endiviifolia

Aneura pinguis

Barbula convoluta var. convoluta

Bryum pseudotriquetrum

Campyliadelphus chrysophyllus

Ctenidium molluscum var. molluscum

Homalothecium lutescens

Gymnostomum viridulum

Didymodon tophaceus

Funaria hygrometrica

Campylium protensum

The red line on the map shows the area that I looked at, so there's plenty more of the site worth exploring. For ref,. there's a public footpath running around the site, but when parking it's best to squeeze onto the verge where I've shown on the plan (SS85248127), rather than use the obvious pull in (marked x), unless you don't mind the attentions of the guys at this popular gay pick-up spot. Also wellies are essential to get through the very muddy gate.  

Preissia quadrata - Leiocolea badensis crust

Merthyr Common

I had a wonderful day out on the northern bit of Merthyr Common yesterday, exploring the crags and shaly overhangs above the Nant Morlais in SO0709.

 

A box full of samples still  to go through, but highlights so far include Hygrohypnum ochraceum (in the stream), Bartramia pomiformis (abundant along a 30m section of crag), Preissia quardata (single patch only), Scorpidium cossonii (with large Aneura growing through it, see pic), Polytrichastrum alpinum (frequent over a large area) and Palustriella commutata. Evidently, there is a fair bit of base enrichment here.

Preissia quadrata

Scorpidium cossonii and large Aneura

Bartramia pomiformis

Another nice surprise was this small clump of Fir Clubmoss, which I missed when I carried out a botanical survey here for the Merthyr Tydfil SINCs project back in 2007.

Fir Clubmoss

I'll blog again if anything else of interest turns up in the remaining samples.

A quarry at Stormy Down

A survey of one of the Limestone quarries at Stormy Down proved to be reasonably productive today. The Weissia-like acrocarp shown below has me puzzled though: The leaf margins are largely plane, though a few are slightly in-rolled towards the tips; the leaves become in-rolled and very crisped on drying; some patches produce abundant, long, reddish, slightly wavy setae with un-inflated capsules in early development; the leaf cells are papillose and the basal cells are larger and hyaline; the strong orangey-tinged costa ends just below the leaf tip; grows as somewhat loose, sometimes extensive patches, growing along with Leiocolea badensis, Dicranella varia and Didymodon fallax, all of which were locally abundant and characterised the damp, clayey, lime-rich soil on the quarry floor. Other frequent calcicoles noted included Aliona aloides, Aneura pinguis, Trichostomum crispulum and Gymnostomum viridulum, the latter being remarkably abundant on the soil slopes all around the lower edges of the quarry walls. A few patches of Preissia quadrata were also noted on the quarry floor.

Below left; Patches of  Leiocolea badensis frequent on the quarry floor. Below right; Gymnostomum viridulum frequent on slopes all around the edges of the quarry floor.

Below; Gymnostomum viridulum, Sedum sexangulare (doing well!) and Preissia quadrata.