Fifty five taxa were recorded on the walk in through SN9602, including Climacium dendroides on colliery spoil and Riccardia palmata on a stump in wet alder woodland.
It's definitely an area which needs another visit!
Wednesday 18 January 2017
Tan y Darren
Yesterday I had a thoroughly enjoyable time exploring the north-facing crags and screes at the head of Cwm Dare. It was a bit of a flying visit as I had to get back for the school run, and as usual I spent too much time looking at other habitats on the walk in from the car. I did manage to have a decent look at the screes, but after that I only had an hour left to look at the sandstone crags. This gave me enough time to explore the easternmost crags, but I didn't even make it as far west as the area where filmy ferns have been recorded.
The crags didn't disappoint, despite the lack of any obvious base enrichment. There were a couple of cracking patches of fruiting Diphyscium foliosum in rock crevices (photo below - left), a few capsules of Pohlia elongata protruding from under an overhang (photo below - right), a small patch of Cynodontium bruntonii, quite a lot of Polytrichastrum alpinum (tbc), as well as Bartramia pomiformis and Fir Clubmoss.
The screes held abundant cushions of Andreaea rothii (ssp falcata) (photo below - right) and I found a single cushion of the scarcer A. rupestris (photo below - left, though I'm kicking myself I didn't bring back a shoot to check for the similar-looking rare species). Although the rocks were acidic, the small stream which I followed up the hill from the cwm had signs of base enrichment with plenty of Ctenidium molluscum and a little Palustriella commutata. So far my list for SN9601 is 58 taxa, but I still have samples to sort through...
Fifty five taxa were recorded on the walk in through SN9602, including Climacium dendroides on colliery spoil and Riccardia palmata on a stump in wet alder woodland.
It's definitely an area which needs another visit!
Fifty five taxa were recorded on the walk in through SN9602, including Climacium dendroides on colliery spoil and Riccardia palmata on a stump in wet alder woodland.
It's definitely an area which needs another visit!
I think that would be a great place for this years Spring Foray.
ReplyDeleteI agree, your records suggest these two squares should produce a comfortable 100+ given more time. That's only the 3rd Glamorgan tetrad for Andreaea rupestris.
ReplyDeleteThanks Barry - I hadn't realised that the Andreaea was so rarely recorded in VC41.
ReplyDeleteIt would make a good location for a group foray (easy parking etc) - the obvious thing to do would be to follow the stream in SN9602 to the head of the crags, and then work south-eastwards along the crags to where I started this week. Unless you think the time would be better spent working on an even less well recorded tetrad nearby?