Tuesday 5 April 2016
Anomodon again
At lunch today I took a quick walk along the lane to Llanwenarth church just west of Abergavenny. Following Charles' recent mention of Anomodon I recalled that a couple of patches grow on the roadside wall in front of the church. It is a south-facing wall only lightly shaded by a tall-ish hedge on the opposite side of the road, but with some of the wall being built into a bank, the stones in the wall presumably soak up enough moisture from the soil to allow the Anomodon to grow. A closer look revealed that as well as the two small patches growing on the wall itself, another patch grows on a sandstone boulder embeded in an earth bank with it also spreading onto an adjacent rotting log. Peering deeper into the hedge also revealed two very separate patches growing at the base of a couple of hawthorn bushes - I can't recall if I have seen Anomodon growing on hawthorn before.
That's interesting as back in Feb I was surprised to find Anomodon growing on a mature Hawthorn along the stream at Barland. The same tree also had Porella platyphylla, Neckera complanata and other weaker calcicoles. I don't know how soil chemistry affects bark chemistry, but clearly this was a particularly limey specimen!
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