More Ulota on rock

Following Barry's recent post, I thought it was worth posting some photos of Ulota bruchii growing on a sandstone block on the northern part of Merthyr Common in March 2015. The rock was situated in an exposed moorland position and the Ulota came as quite a surprise. There were three cushions in total, two of which are visible within the large patch of black lichen in the photo below.

Ulota bruchii growing on an exposed sandstone block

Close up of one of the U. bruchii cushions

Ulota query

Even though the whitish spreading/erect peristome is suggestive of drummondii, I'm suspecting this is just bruchii. The habitat was unusual in that it was growing on rock (ORS quartz conglomerate) fully exposed on a south-facing slope on Cefn Bryn. I've not looked at it under the microscope yet, but if anyone has any thoughts I'd be interested to hear. Possibly one to hang on to giving the proposed split?

dry voucher

wetted plants in situ

habitat

Little else of any real note, though a good area of the perennial favourite Ptilidium ciliare amongst Heather and lichens, new for SS58.

Rustwort at Whiteford

Nowellia curvifolia was noted growing on a small, well-decayed, fallen branch of Corsican Pine under one of the conifer blocks at Whiteford Burrows on Tuesday, this being unexpected at such a dry and coastal location. Lophocolea heterophylla was the only direct associate noted on the log, although the usual larger pleurocarps Pseudoscleropodium purum and Rhytidiadelphus triquetrus were abundant in the immediate vicinity.

Nowellia growing on log centre-front, an unexpectedly well-illuminated and dry coastal site

Sam’s Pembs and Carms bryofloras show just one coastal record for Pembs in what appears to be a sheltered location and David Holyoak’s Cornish bryoflora also only shows one coastal locality. The new atlas however, does indicate that this is a species which is spreading, so perhaps we can expect to find it in the lowlands a little more frequently.

The distribution map shows Nowellia is well-recorded by Charles and Hilary in woodlands of NPT, although it would be interesting to know in which habitats and on what timber they have found it?

Phascum cuspidatum (Cuspidate Earth-moss)

Compared to Gower and east Glamorgan, there's not much arable land in Neath Port Talbot. But there are some promising sites on the southern edge of the county between Margam and the Kenfig River, although unofficial access to most of them is not possible. However,H and I managed to look around 2 small patches near the east gate to Margam Park yesterday. Both support a nice mixture of common arable species such as  Dicranella staphylina, D. schreberiana, Oxyrrhynchium hians, Trichodon cylindricus, Tortula truncata and an assortment of common Bryum species e.g. argenteum, dichotomum, rubens). Sadly, we couldn't find any crystalworts or hornworts, but one of the fields had a substantial population of Phascum cuspidatum (= Tortula acaulon in Ron Porly's excellent field guide to Arable Bryophytes).

Phascum cuspidatum (Cuspidate Earth-moss) in arable field near Margam, 

Tortula truncata (Common Pottia) in arable field near Margam

Phascum cuspidatum is often described as a common arable species, but there are few records of it in VC41. Roy described it as rare in Glamorgan and Sam has commented on its scarcity in Carmarthenshire (compared to Pembrokeshire). However, there's lots of arable land in the Vale of Glamorgan that must be suitable for this predominantly lowland species. 

Arable fun

This afternoon Julian Woodman took me to see an organic arable field just west of Cardiff (ST1080). I was on school run duty so we had a 4 year old in tow, but that didn't spoil the fun of seeing lots of the crystalworts (both Riccia glauca and sorocarpa) which Julian had seen when he first visited the field a week or two ago. More exciting still was a fair abundance of hornwort rosettes, often mixed with the crystalworts. Neither of us had seen a hornwort before so we were rather chuffed (though Bethany was rather more interested in the shieldbugs and spiders).

I think these are probably Anthoceros agrestis, given the rosettes are small (0.6-0.8cm diameter) and this species is more likely than punctatus in the east of Wales, but I couldn't find any antheridia to confirm this. Any comments on whether it is safe to record this as agrestis would be welcome.

Anthoceros agrestis?

Young Anthoceros agrestis?

A species rich lump of arable earth

There was also a lot of Fossombronia sp. (lacking sporophytes) as well as Tortula truncata, Trichodon cylindricus, Dicranella staphylina and Bryum rubens, among other more generalist species such as Oxyrrhynchium hians.

Gwendraeth Fawr

An area of M23b-S5 transition on the floodplain of the Gwendraeth Fawr had a strong population of Amblystegium radicale in an otherwise bryo-poor marsh community. I've only seen this species a few times before and never growing as well or as erect as this, and with the largest leaves up to 1.7mm long (Smith gives max. as 1.4mm), confirmation or otherwise would be appreciated. The narrow, but long decurrent leaf bases seem to be key.

Willows along the adjacent disused canal/railway (now mostly wet woodland) supported locally frequent patches of fruiting Homalia trichomanoides, with occasional curly shoots of Sanionia uncinata intermixed.

Finally, an area of tightly grazed turf on what appears to be the remnant of an old tip was largely dominated by a Weissia  (photo below right) that had a few clusters of young sporophytes. The presence of frequent Bryum pallescens (with old and develping sporophytes), perhaps suggests this might be W. controversa var. densifolia, but the expanse of Weissia was more of a crust than the dense cushions I've seen at other sites. Again opinion would be welcome, but I suspect it will simply have to be logged as Weissia sp. A non-fruiting and indeterminate Cephaloziella (photo below left) was the only other frequent bryo at this interesting little area.

Whiteford Bryum search

Nick Edwards kindly invited me down to me meet David Holyoak last Wednesday, who was carrying out a series of dune slack bryophyte surveys in Wales. It was good to spend a little time with the very affable Mr Holyoak before letting him get on with things, but not before he had shown us Bryum marratii and putative B. warneum in the 'new' slack. Very much looking forward to seeing David's final report.

David at the first putative Bryum warneum location

A patch of B. marratii at Whiteford from April 2012 (first found by Sam)
The material seen last week was fresher and greener, the spreading,
blunt-tipped leaves being very good characters to look for.