▼

Saturday 7 January 2017

Lanlay Meadows

My first square bash of 2017, yesterday afternoon, took me to National Trust's Lanlay Meadows in the eastern Vale. It's a nice site where I've done some moth trapping in the past; a series of dry meadows (cut for hay) and wet meadows (dominated by Molinia, with some Carex swamp), bordering the River Ely. There are also thick hedges and some cracking veteran oaks. The site falls within tetrad ST07S, which had previous records of 48 bryo taxa from various sources (including a thatch survey by Richard Lansdown and Sam, and some urban recording by Barry in Bonvilston).



In some ways the visit was disappointing - the oaks were clothed in Hypnum spp but little else, and most of the riverbank trees were frustratingly out of reach (the banks were steep and topped with dense bramble). I did manage to grab a few arm's-length samples from riverbank alders by lying on the bank; these resulted in a few silty epiphytes: Leskea polycarpa, Homalia trichomanoides and Plagiomnium rostratum. Elsewhere, small streams crossing the site produced a fair range of species including Hygroamblystegium tenax. By the time I got to the sedge swamp it was almost dark, but the few grab samples I took home included some straggly shoots of Calliergon cordifolium, last recorded at the site on a CCW survey back in 1995 (photos below).
 

The tetrad total has risen to 72 taxa.
at

5 comments:

  1. Barry Stewart8 January 2017 at 11:33

    Job done George - that's a better start to the year than I've achieved so far

    ReplyDelete
  2. GMT8 January 2017 at 17:06

    Thanks, and as you say, job done - I thought Lanley might need two visits but I don't think it really warrants another one. Looking forward to the next tetrad to the north (ST07T) which has some amazing looking river meanders and a footpath alongside.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Charles Hipkin8 January 2017 at 19:48

    Yes, well done George. Some of our tetrads are hard work.

    ReplyDelete
  4. sambbryo8 January 2017 at 19:53

    Anywhere with 72 taxa is child's play compared with some of the tetrads at the east end of the St David's Peninsula in Pembs, where a combination of exposure and intensive agriculture make it difficult to top 40 species of bryophyte! Well done though, George.

    ReplyDelete
  5. GMT9 January 2017 at 09:53

    Likewise the south-east Cardiff docklands, where I've struggled to get past 35 in a couple of tetrads.

    ReplyDelete