"Someone told me it's all happening at the zoo. I do believe it, I do believe it's true"
A visit to Bristol Zoo with Bea and Johnny gave me the chance to check on the
Antitrichia patch that I found several years ago on a
Paulownia tree by the Prairie Dog enclosure. The Prairie Dogs have been replaced by a Pudu, but the tree is still there and so is a scrappy patch of
Antitrichia.
I looked at the Zoo's bryophytes in reasonable detail with Richard Lansdown (whilst our then toddling daughters kept themselves entertained) a few months after spotting the
Antitrichia, so I didn't do any other recording today. However, I noticed a patch of pale moss on top of a Tree-fern and thought that might be worth a look. Sure enough, it was
Leptotheca gaudichaudii - one of the more regular Tree-fern aliens in Britain and Ireland. I haven't noticed this moss or the Tree-ferns at the Zoo before, but I think it's an area I've bypassed before.
I looked for it when I was there in February, but couldn't find it. For some reason I'd got it in my head that the tree was by the monkey enclosure. Next time...
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