Today I finally checked a few specimens I brought back from a 1 hour visit to Hillend, at the northern end of Rhossili Down,on the 4th (the area searched shown above). There is a nice rocky ridge in this area, marking the geological boundary of the Brownstones formation and the Upper ORS. The
Frullania on the rocks looked interesting and one of my samples had a mix of
tamarisci,
dilatata and
microphylla var.
microphylla, the latter new for the county
. I'm pretty confident this is correct and whilst a barely detectable fragrance put a little doubt in my mind, everything else seems spot on. The flat leaves seem to be a good field feature. Occasional burgundy patches of
Frullania were dotted around the rocks and whilst I'm not 100% sure which rock my sample came from, I suspect it was that shown in the above photo (approximately SS41939097). I'm sure further searches will reveal further patches with
microphylla mixed in. Other species noted included some nice patches of
Grimmia trichophylla, Pterogonium gracile and
Scleropodium touretii.
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| G. trichophylla |
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| coastal lichens were much more prominent than bryos. |
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| rocks with Pterogonium, Isothecium myosuroides and Hypnum cupressiforme var. resupinatum |
That's a cracking find, Barry. It fits the Pembs & Carms distribution pretty well, but it still mighty uncommon. I'm sure there are plenty of other notable species to be found on the non-limestone sections of Gower.
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff. Isn't that the second new VC liverwort you've had from Rhossili Down in the last year or so?!
ReplyDeleteYes and still lots of unworked habitat there. Porella obtusata was the other one, plus some useful moss records too including Fissidens curvatus.
ReplyDeleteWhat a fantastic site. Great record Barry.
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