Saturday, 12 March 2016

Heterocladium heteropterum var. flaccidum

I noticed several small rocks covered in Heterocladium during a family walk at Coed-y-wenallt (North Cardiff ridgeway) yesterday. This came as a surprise as the wood is generally of little bryological interest and lacks humidity-demanding species, though I haven't had a proper look at Nant Cwmnofydd in the valley bottom (though Peter Sturgess and Roy Perry have recorded here).

 
Yesterday's sample proved to be H. heteropterum var. flaccidum, which updates an old Atlas record for ST18 made at the same site by A.E. Wade in 1951. The colony I found was by a footpath at ST149830 and could conceivably be the same colony that Wade recorded 65 years ago.

2 comments:

  1. Always worth trying to refind those old records ... We had lots of fun in Carmarthenshire searching out H H Knight's goodies that he had recorded 100 years earlier....

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  2. Yes indeed, there are quite a few records of goodies around Cardiff that I should make efforts to seek out - though the H.h.f. was a chance find and I only learned of Wade's record when I got home.

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