Saturday, 8 October 2016

Ephemerum sessile new for VC34


I took Bea and Johnny to Beechenhurst in the Forest of Dean today for the 'Go Ape' and by good fortune found several of Bea's school friends there.  This meant I was atypically stationary in one area, chatting, and my eyes subconsciously scanned the ground.  They alighted on a dull-green patch of what looked like dense moss protonema, so I bent down and scraped up a bit of moss.  I explained to Bea's friends parents "it looks like a new moss for Gloucestershire", and sure enough it was: Ephemerum rutheanum subsp. sessile.  It was growing in gappy turf at SO61311232, just west of the Go Ape area, along with various other mosses that I didn't have time to check (a non-fertile Weissia looked interesting).
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9 comments:

  1. Barry Stewart9 October 2016 at 18:13

    Excellent bit of spotting Sam. Surely a species that must be present somewhere in Glamorgan too - time to get out our magnifying glasses!

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  2. sambbryo9 October 2016 at 19:26

    I found it SW of Merthyr about 10 years ago, but in tiny quantity and the recorder for mosses considered it inadequate. I'm sure it's elsewhere in VC41...

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  3. sambbryo9 October 2016 at 19:26

    Ps look for the dense protonema, rather than the plants themselves

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  4. Barry Stewart10 October 2016 at 09:03

    Thanks Sam, i should have checked first as there are in fact 2 Glamorgan records: Your 2014 Hirwaun record and Paul Hudson's 2005 Rhydycar record.

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  5. sambbryo10 October 2016 at 11:49

    Who is Paul Hudson? Rhydycar is my Merthyr site, so there might be a name muddle in the dataset.

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  6. Barry Stewart10 October 2016 at 23:21

    I'll check these out tomorrow and I'll see if any other records are attributed to PH, who sounds familiar, but can place him right now.

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  7. GMT11 October 2016 at 07:36

    I used to work with Paul Hudson and he did do some surveys at Rhydycar in 2005 (for a MTCBC pSINC). He knew a reasonable amount about bryos but I doubt he'd have recorded this obscure species. I suspect he referenced Sam's record in a report and then the record was exctracted by a third party and attributed to Paul.

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  8. Barry Stewart11 October 2016 at 08:24

    Paul has 39 bryo records attributed to his name, all but the Ephemerum being common robust species. For some reason Sam's Rhydycar record is not on my system, so I'd be grateful if Sam can provide me with the details. George, if you have Paul's email, can you either ask him yourself about the record, or pass on his email so that I can please?

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  9. GMT11 October 2016 at 09:36

    I'll email you Barry....

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