Tuesday 8 December 2015

Slade cliff seawatch

I treated myself to a seawatch at Port Eynon at first light on Sunday morning, but it was so drizzly when I arrived, that visibility did not extend beyond the surf. So a backup plan to add a few more records to SS48X was put in place and in the relative shelter of Slade Valley I managed to add a few species of interest; these included a mound of Weissia controversa var. densifolia growing under the hinge of a galvanized gate and some good patches of Plasteurhynchium striatulum growing on an outcrop under the coastal scrub. After 30 minutes the rain started to ease so I took my scope onto the cliff, but with little passing I soon became distracted by the bryophytes growing around me. I spent 30 blustery minutes with a hand lens adding some good species to the square, the best of which were Fossombronia caespitiformis (=husnotii) [photos above] which was frequent but scattered over many square metres, a little Bryum kunzei (=funkii), occasional Microbryum starckeanum and even smaller, what I'm pretty sure what is a new species for me, Cephaloziella calyculata [photos below]. There is a however, however, as the material was non-fruiting. The key in Paton took me quickly to calyculata/integerrima but the angular pale green gemmae and habitat seem to be the only distinctions between the two when non-fertile; integerrima usually displays red pigments and is not typically associated with Limestone. Perhaps Sam can let me know if this is a safe id? Like the Fossombronia, plants were scattered across a good area, so potentially quite a significant population if confirmed. I'm not sure what species the Cephaloziella is in the photos above (rather sparse oval gemmae present on a few shoots and underleaves frequent so possibly divaricata), but I initially thought the plants below might have been Lophozia excisa until closer inspection revealed pale green gemmae.

3 comments:

  1. What a fabulous collection of species. It will be interesting to see whether the limestone cliffs of the Vale reveal similar delights when they finally get some proper survey effort.

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  2. Richard Lansdown found Cephaloziella calyculata on Vale (if I remember correctly) but several other Gower limestone species remain to be found/absent. I have looked at the western end, near Ogmore, but the younger limestones remain poorly worked.

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