Rivers Tawe & Clydach

Some pit-stop recording today helped fill in a few gaps and provided a few records of interest. Finding some real Mnium marginatum (photos above) on the silty banks of the Tawe has finally put me on the right track with this species. But just as one puzzle is solved another pops up ... this time some locally abundant Hygrohypnum growing on silty boulders in the River Clydach. I've been unable to find any trace of hyaline auricles, only pigmented incrassate alar cells which appear to have granular material within them. Given the habitat I was expecting it to be ochraceum, not luridum (any comments welcome on this, some ropey shots of sample leaves below). A final brief stop at a sandstone crag at Tor Clawdd produced some beautiful Pohlia elongata and Scapania compacta growing amongst Marsupella marginata var. marginata on a sunken boulder.