Wednesday, 30 August 2017

Putative Hygroamblystegium humile at Llanrhidian

This robust Amblystegium/Hygroamblystegium, noted growing abundantly in a ringing ride through reed-swamp at Llanrhidian, keyed out as humile using Smith, plus it fits well the characters given in the Field Guide. There's not too much additional material on line I could find that was of real help, so any comments would be very welcome. Key features included:
- stem leaves >2mm, branch leaves quite a bit smaller
- narrow nerve extending 3/4 of way up leaf (not into the tip)
- leaf margins entire
- non-decurrent leaf bases
- leaves well-spaced and widely spreading
I do struggle a bit with these non-descript pleurocarps, so hopefully I'm not way off track!

3 comments:

  1. Looks good to me Barry. A useful character is the narrow leaf insertion which your photos shows. I regard it as a good species but in other parts of the world it is relegated to varietal status (see BFNA for example)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you Tom. It's a species I've suspected at a couple of other sites locally, which i'll need to revisit.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you Tom. It's a species I've suspected at a couple of other sites locally, which i'll need to revisit.

    ReplyDelete