Back to the flood zone

For obvious reasons I haven't done much riparian recording this winter, but after a couple of almost dry days I thought I'd chance my arm on a lunchtime outing at Peterston-super-Ely (ST0876) today. Just west of the village is an easily accessible riverbank section with several mature trees, and happily the water level was low enough to expose the flood zone mosses.

Most of the expected species were there: Homalia trichomanoides, Cinclidotus fontinaloides and Plagiomnium rostratum (all on alder), Leskea polycarpa (on Sycamore) and a fair sized patch of Mnium marginatum on the silty riverbank. Best of all was a few small tufts of Orthotrichum sprucei on alder roots just above the water's surface. The location is two tetrads west of the St Fagans site for this species, but I'd imagine it will be present in the intervening tetrad too - as well as further upstream on the Ely. The arrow in the photo below shows the location.

Elsewhere there were a few riparian species in their more usual tarmac habitat: Dialytrichia mucronata, Didymodon sinuosus and D. nicholsonii. I searched a flailed hedge for Pylaisia without luck, though just below the regular flail zone was a good range of epiphytes - a habitat I'd not appreciated previously.

River Loughor epiphytes

Orthotrichum sprucei

A quick afternoon visit to the banks of the Glamorgan side of the Loughor in SN50Y was made to give the square total a boost. The first tree I inspected, a Rusty Willow, had plenty of the expected epiphytes, one I was hoping for - Orthotrichum rivulare, plus another that I wasn't expecting - O. sprucei, which was fruiting and replete with gemmae, so in pretty full-on reproduction mode. This was a new species for me, which I suspect will prove to be more widespread along this river.

New river, new moss

After numerous riverbank surveys I'd more or less given up hope of finding Orthotrichum rivulare or sprucei on the Taff in Cardiff, so decided to make my first foray to the River Ely, at St Fagans, on my lunch break today. There, on the first alder I looked at, was O. sprucei! At least, I think it is sprucei rather than rivulare - small plants (mostly < 1cm tall) forming carpets and with large leaf cells - but if anyone disagrees based on the photos below please let me know.

Host Alder

Rubbish field photo but shows the low carpets of O. sprucei

I don't have the apparatus to measure the leaf cells, so can I be 100% sure it's not rivulare?

I only searched two alders - the second didn't have any sprucei, but between them they supported at least 16 epiphytes including abundant Leskea polycarpa and small amounts of Brachythecium plumosum, Cinclidotus fontinaloides and Homalia trichomanoides.