Didymodon icmadophilus again

H and I came across an interesting Didymodon while walking along the Abergarwed Forest road on Sunday. It appears to be identical to the Didymodon icmadophilus found by Barry in Aberpergwm. The Abergarwed population was growing in a typical forest road community which included Cratoneuron filicinum, D. fallax and D. ferrugineus among others. 

Didymodon icmadophilus, in fine gravel Abergarwed Forest road

The Abergarwed plants share the key features shown by the Aberpergwm plants, i.e. the strikingly attenuated leaf tip made up mostly of costa and the quadrate (rather than rounded) papillose leaf cells.

Attenuated leaf tip of the Abergarwed D. icmadophilus

Quadrate, papillose leaf cells of the Abergarwed D. icmadophilus

I can't help thinking that I have seen plants like this before on forest roads which I have either ignored or passed over as odd looking D. rigidulus. Barry has drawn our attention to the current taxonomic confusion with this 'species' which may be absorbed into D. acutus. In the Flora of North America it is named D. rigidulus var. icmadophilus which, however, is described as having non-papillose cells. Our plants seem to be more similar to the taxon named D. rigidulus var. gracilis which is also described in that flora. Smith mentions D. acutus var. icmadophilus and D. rigidulus var. icmadophilus as former names.

This is an interesting addition to the bryophyte flora of forest roads in south Wales and I suspect that it is widespread in small and easily overlooked populations. Until its taxonomy is sorted, and if everybody agrees,  I suggest that we record plants that fit this description as Didymodon icmadophilus.

Roof Moss revisited

When I posted on 4th December I couldn't find a photo to illustrate Campylopus introflexus growing on tiled roof tops, but yesterday whilst visiting the museum at St. Fagans I noticed that C. introflexus has started to colonise the roof of the woollen mill.   Although most tufts are still quite rounded, a few are big enough to start showing that distinctive tall straight growth-form.

Nearby I also noticed a bunch of sausages starting to grow on a tree near the lakes.

Llanfihangel Pontymoel church - mossiest in Gwent?

Bryologists are not as focussed on churchyard surveying as lichenologists, but churchyards do offer us an accessible and ecologically varied site in most lowland tetrads and are therefore routinely visited during bryophyte recording. For several years I have kept my churchyard records separate from more general village/rural recording so that I can compare different churchyards, sticking to Consecrated Ground for a church/chapel list (ie bryophytes inside the wall or on the wall count, whereas those eg on the lane outside do not). Chris Preston and I employed similar tactics whilst Atlas recording in Ireland, and I think churchyards were recorded separately in Cambridgeshire: in theory we should have a reasonable transect of semi-complete churchyard bryophyte records stretching from Cork & Limerick, via Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire & Monmouthshire, to Cambridgeshire.

 

Llanfihangel Pontymoel - north of Ponypool and west of Usk - was my 60th reasonably well-recorded churchyard in VC35. Just under an hour recording there on 23rd December produced 60 bryophyte species, which is the largest total so far for a church/chapel in VC35 (Monmouthshire but equivalent to the former county of Gwent). The previous record was held by Dixton church near Monmouth, with 58 species, followed by Shirenewton Church 53, Llangua Church 52, Nash Church 49, Gwrhay Church 46, Chepstow Priory Church 44 and Mamhilad Church 42.

 

 

 

The churchyard at Llanfihangel Pontymoel is quite large and varied, with scattered trees, abundant graves and a stream forming one boundary. The stream held Fissidens crassipes and Conocephalum conicum; sandstone graves supported Schistidium apocarpum ss (1 grave), Racomitrium aciculare (8) and R. fasciculare (1); roof tiles held Fissidens dubius; disturbed soil produced Microbryum rectum new for SO30 as well as Fissidens exilis, F. viridulus and Pleuridium subulatum. I almost stopped at 59 species, but spotted a discarded carpet as I left the churchyard on which was growing a single tuft of Bryum argenteum (often common on tarmac church paths but absent from the concrete path here).

 

A quick look at the nearby canal took the tetrad total over the 75 species mark.

Scopelophila in Swansea - Reestablishment update

Treatment area, showing location of planted clump (red) and scarified
ground sown with crumbled Scopelophila mixed with donor substrate.
Iona Graham & Gareth Bowen

Scopelophila was last recorded in Swansea in 2007 by Sam at the Six Pits Branch and was one of the features that led to the site being designated as a SSSI in 2017.  Even before the site was notified, it was already known the species may have been lost due to illegal dumping of cuttings at this last known site.  Despite works by an NRW-led team, which cleared the key area in 2015, no regeneration of Scopelophila was apparent the following season.  This led to Andrew Lucas arranging the paperwork and permissions for a translocation exercise in 2018, in which a small quantity of material from the donor site at Bynea saltmarsh was used to reestablish the species at the Six Pit, Swansea Vale and White Rock SSSI.  The exercise was undertaken on 17th October 2018 by another NRW-led team and myself using the following method "Samples ranging approximately between 10-20 cm2 were generally planted against rocks, which both serve as useful reference points for relocation and also provide an element of protection from being dislodged. ... [Also] a crumbled sample of donor substrate with rhizoidal tubers was loosely scattered on land adjacent to each location after scarifying the ground..." 

crumbled donor material ready for sowing on scarified ground 

Kerry Rogers & Iona Graham at one of the treated
locations where inoculation has been very successful

As I was passing the site today, I had a quick 10 minute shifty around the site to look for evidence of how the Scopelophila was doing.   I was able to relocate some of the spots where I remembered us doing the work, and whilst some of the planted clumps were not evident during my quick scan (presumed dislodged), others had taken well and had put on some growth.  Much more encouraging was the growth of the crumbled material, which was growing on the scarified substrate, this being a simple method for greatly extending the area of the population with limited intervention.

Location 7, 17-Oct-18 

Location 7, 22-Dec-19.  Note brown hue to soil is all Scopelophila establishing

Location 7, 22-Dec-19.  Detail of Scopelophila establishing

Even the 'last minute' cycle-path edge plots, 17-Oct-19 held Scopelophila

I must finally mention that the work undertaken by NRW last winter to reduce the amount of encroaching scrub has been very beneficial.

Roof Moss

Barry’s moss roof post reminded me of an unusual roof moss I noticed amongst some of my old photographs recently.  Back in 2004 when Sam and I were doing some recording for the Carmarthenshire bryophyte flora we spotted some tufts of Campylopus atrovirens growing on a slate roof. 

The roof in the photograph is near Allt Rhyd y Groes National Nature Reserve in the very north-east of Carmarthenshire - one of my most favourite parts of Wales.    This oceanic species has a very western distribution in Britain, and in south Wales I think I have mostly seen it growing in wet heath, especially where there is some slight flushing – in the Allt Rhyd y Groes area it probably rains more days than it doesn’t, so probably not surprising a moss like this can grow in such an exposed spot.
  
I think the only other Campylopus species I have seen on roofs is C. introflexus – fairly common on thatch but also sometimes growing between roof tiles, where it takes on a very distinctive growth form of tall, very straight-sided tufts, easily identified as this species from a good distance away.