Saturday, 29 November 2014
Radyr arable: part 2
I've now finished trawling through the cereal stubble specimens I gathered last week, and added a few extra species to those I listed in the previous post: Tortula truncata, T. modica, Dicranella varia and Trichodon cylindricus. This takes the list for the fields to 17 species, though I have to confess to giving up on most of the Bryum spp!
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Did you find either of the two more regular arable Dicranella species (i.e. schreberiana or staphylina)? Only varia is said to be uncommon in arable fields and as you've seen recently, I struggle a bit with these narrow-leaved acrocarps!
ReplyDeleteNo, weirdly I only found varia - which was fruiting. I've never knowingly seen staphylina and checked a lot of rhizoids on the Radyr material for tubers, but no luck...
ReplyDeleteNo confusion there then - I'm sure you'll start seeing it if you plan more ventures in the arable zone.
ReplyDeleteThe best technique for arable Bryum is 'Fisking', named in honour of Suffolk bryologist Richard Fisk. You gather 8 or 10 bits of moss-turf dominated by Bryum from a field, bung them into a jam jar half full of water, then shake them up (with the lid on). The stick the contents into a sieve and mush them around a bit, before returning to the jam jar for another rinse with clean water. The resulting mush of mud-free Bryum can then be sorted through under the dissecting microscope to search for tubers and purple (violaceum & ruderale) tubers. It's a bit too much like Dipterist work for my liking, but is really the only way to find some of the minor tuberous Bryum species.
ReplyDeleteThanks Sam - I suspected there was some better method for trying to locate these tuberous species than just fiddling around scraping soil off the rhizoids.
ReplyDeleteThe other issue is how best to spot the small species in the field - kneeling down in muddy arable isn't very inviting, but they are too small to spot while standing upright. I think I need some kind of kneeler.