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Sunday 1 April 2018

Tylorstown & Llanwonno

A belated post from an outing on 23 March -

My first full day of bryophyte recording in I don't know how long took me to ST09, one of the more under-recorded hectads in Rhondda Cynon Taf with only 4 of the 25 constituent tetrads having 60+ bryo species recorded.

I started at Tylorstown Tip (aka Old Smokey), which despite being such a prominent Rhondda landmark didn't appear to have any previous bryophyte records.
The north side of the tip (split between ST09C and ST09H) produced a list of 63 species, the best of those on the colliery spoil being Barbilophozia floerkei, Ptilidium ciliare, Riccardia multifida, Climacium dendroides and Rhytidiadelphus triquetrus. The scattered young larches proved good for epiphytes including a single weft of Sanionia uncinata (photo below) and a large(ish) cushion of Colura calyptrifolia in an exposed location near the top of the tip (at 430m, with just some scattered young spruce for shelter).

After lunch I moved on to the southern end of the Llanwonno forestry plantation, where ST09G was a blank canvas as far as bryophyte recording goes. Rotting conifer logs among the Sitka held plenty of Nowellia curvifolia, Calypogeia muelleriana was found on a ditchside, Colura was recorded on birch and rowan and Ulota calvescens on willow (but no Daltonia was forthcoming despite actively searching for it). A puzzling Metzgeria with very narrow thalli was also found on willow (see photo below - note the Frullania which gives a sense of scale). This might be the male shoots of M. furcata mentioned in Paton but if anyone has any other ideas please let me know.
All in all it was a productive day but lacking anything to live long in the memory. 103 species were recorded, spread across four tetrads, with 135 new tetrad records being made.
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3 comments:

  1. Charles Hipkin2 April 2018 at 12:47

    Call me old fashioned George but Sanionia uncinata, Barbilophozia floerkii and Ptilidium ciliare always live long-ish in my ageing memory - all worthy records.
    RCT tetrads seem to be filling up. Can you give some idea of which are still in need of attention?

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  2. Barry Stewart2 April 2018 at 15:36

    Yes, some noteworthy species there for our county at least. George is waiting for a sync file from me before doing an update, so if you are able to send me one first Charles, then we can all be brought up to speed.

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  3. GMT2 April 2018 at 22:35

    You're right Charles, I did underplay it a bit. I did get quite excited about the Sanionia as I'd not seen that species before.

    There's still a lot to do in RCT, and some very promising areas crying out to be searched. Most of the significant changes since the last tetrad map should be documented on the blog...though Karen has been looking at ST08A-C this winter and I don't have her results yet. As Barry says I'll do a new map once I get a sync from him.

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