Ton-up

Actually more like ton-down: I have fewer than 100 tetrads left unsurveyed for bryophytes in Monmouthshire (VC35)!  Bea had a birthday party just across the border yesterday, so I had nearly 4 hours to record 1.5 tetrads in the White Castle area.  Both were good examples of typical NE Monmouthshire - lovely rolling landscape with deep-cut streams and lane banks exposing neutral Old Red Sandstone.  Highlights among the 77 species recorded in SO31Y (Upper Cwm lanes) were (+indicates photo): +Eurhynchium schleicheri (abundant on one lane bank), +Plagiothecium curvifolium (fruiting on a large tree-stump), +Pylaisia polyantha (one large patch on a fallen canopy Ash branch), Platygyrium repens (a few patches on roadside Clematis), Rhynchostegiella teneriffae (frequent on ORS rocks in a stream gully) and Mnium stellare (large patches on stream bank), as well as the full suite of regular epiphytic Orthotrichum and some wall, track and tarmac 'grots'. 

I made a start on SO31Z in 2007 (Bont), so topped up that lanes list with a visit to a locality where a footpath crossed a deep-cut stream (Red Castle cwm), taking the tetrad total up to 79 spp.  Yesterday's highlights included +Plagiochila porelloides & +Scleropodium cespitans sharing sandstone outcrops, Rhynchostegiella teneriffae in the stream, and Mnium stellare on the stream bank.  It's really good to know what the background bryophyte flora of this part of the county is like.