Hook-moss flush, Dulais Valley (NPT)

This flush, which drains water off reclaimed open cast slopes on to a forest road dressed with calcareous chippings, is dominated by Sarmenthypnum exannulatum. Other associates include Calliergonella cuspidata, Philonotis fontana and Sphagnum subnitens, all indicative of a neutral flush.

Sarmenthypnum exannulatum, Nant y Cafn

Sarmenthypnum exannulatum,Nant y Cafn: distinctive long, curved alar cells at leaf base

We also noted a Scapania scattered among the Philonotis which looked promising for S. paludicola. However, given the frequent occurrence of S. irrigua on forest roads and the difficulties in separating these two in wet habitats, I knew caution was required, particularly in view of comments that Sam has made on this blog with respect to the S. paludicola/irrigua in Pembs. The preponderance of almost semicircular keels on examined specimens did suggest S. paludicola. I thought I could see gemmae on some shoots, so some specimens were taken for examination. Jean Paton describes the gemmae of S. paludicola as 'green but soon becoming yellowish brown or brown to brownish red or pink to purplish red'. Those of S. irrigua  she describes as green. Generally speaking you should expect to see darker pigmented gemmae on S. paludicola (if they are present). Here are some photos:

Scapania (c.f. paludicola), Nant y Cafn, with preponderance of arcuate keels

Arcuate keels of Scapania (c.f. paludicola), Nant y Cafn

The occurrence of this Scapania with Sarmenthypnum exannulatum is certainly consistent with it being S. paludicola, but I am not familiar enough with this species to be certain. It would be a second record for NPT and an interesting addition to the bryoflora of forest roads in south Wales. Comments welcome.

Caerphilly Castle

I took Johnny and his cousins to Caerphilly Castle along with my brother and sister on Sunday 19th January, and while the boys played I did some surreptitious bryology. The castle held 31 relatively mundane bryophyte species, with Tortella nitida, Pseudocrossidium revolutum and Gyroweisia tenuis perhaps the most interesting. However, the park to the south held several extremely mossy trees and added more than 20 species to the tally. Pylaisia polyantha was fruiting on the north side of one of the first Maples I checked, and when I checked the south side of the tree I noticed several shoots of immediately recognisable Habrodon perpusillus. Young Cryphaea heteromalla often makes me ponder Habrodon, but there's something distinctive about the yellow-green colour of Habrodon and the way its extremely narrow shoots curve out away from the trunk. Microscope checking revealed no costa, the filiform apex, and the correct lamina and marginal cell shapes. Zygodon viridissimus was fruiting abundantly on a nearby Sycamore, and other species noted included Orthotrichum tenellum, O. striatum and Cololejeunea minutissima.

There are 6 other known Welsh sites for the GB Red Listed, Environment Wales Act Section 7 moss Habrodon, 4 of which are in Glamorgan:

VC41 Candleston Castle, Merthyr Mawr NNR (still present on Sycamores, thanks to management by the NNR warden to reduce shading)

VC41 Ogmore river (Chris Forster Brown record that I failed to relocate)

VC41 Fonmon Castle (Chris Forster Brown record that I haven't searched for, not on NBN)

VC41 Vaynor (Roy Perry's pub carpark colony has now gone but the species survives on nearby hedgerow Ash)

VC44 Sir John's Hill, Laugharne (a good-sized population on several trees)

VC47 Penant Melangell (found on a fallen tree by Mark Hill in the 1970s and never seen since in Powys)

Pylaisia polyantha with abundant sporophytes

Habrodon perpusillus growing with Zygodon conoideus

Sporophytes on Zygodon viridissimus

King Rock, Cymmer

King Rock viewed from the south with Abercregan in distance

A few days ago, on a dismal grey afternoon, we hiked up to King Rock (near Cymmer) to look for the Lanceolate Spleenwort (Asplenium obovatum) that Sharon Pilkington recorded there in 2016. This is a rather rare fern in the British Flora and is restricted mostly to coastal habitats - interestingly there is another inland site for it near Tonyrefail (RCT), which is not far away from Cymmer (NPT). Unfortunately, after a fairly diligent search we were unable to find it, although our attention was moderated by the poor light conditions. I doubt very much that it has disappeared from the site in the last 3 years, so we will definitely return to look for it again under better conditions. On the plus side it did force us to look carefully into the rock crevices on the north-facing side of this imposing sandstone outcrop where we found some nice patches of Isopterygiopsis pulchella growing on dark, sheltered, soil-capped ledges. Sam had already recorded this at Craig y Llyn and Graham and Sam have also found it in the vicinity of Scwd Gwladys in the Pyrddin Valley, although that location may be in Brecs. This thread-like species is pretty scarce in south Wales and it was nice to see so much of it growing in pure wefts. 

Pure weft of Isopterygiopsis pulchella with typical thread-like shoots, King Rock, Cymmer

Narrow, nerveless, long-pointed leaves of Isopterygiopsis pulchella with very narrow cell structure

Other stuff that was fairly obvious included Barbilophozia attenuata, B. floerkei, Lophozia sudetica, Oreoweisia bruntonii and Ptilidium ciliare. It's not a very large outcrop but the distinctly upland bryoflora here is rather nice.

Barbilophozia attenuata, King Rock, Cymmer

Lophozia sudetica, King Rock, Cymmer

Ptilidium ciliare, King Rock, Cymmer

The smaller outcrops and boulders which are spread over the whole site are covered with fabulous lichen communities with lots of fruiting Xanthoparmelia conspersa.

Xanthoparmelia conspersa, King Rock, Cymmer

A few days at the end of Gower

Just after New Year I spent three very agreeable days with family and friends based at a bunkhouse near the end of Gower. The weather was kind and we spent a lot of time outside, which led to a few unplanned bryophyte encounters. I also did some more structured recording on Hardings Down, only a short walk from our base.

My personal highlight was a poke around in Bessie's Meadow on a walk up Rhossili Down. I had Porella obtusata in mind and had looked up Barry's grid reference beforehand, and it proved surprisingly easy to find it on two of the Old Red Sandstone conglomerate boulders - thus doubling the number of known rocks in VC41 that support it. As Barry pointed out there are many rocks left to search here, so there may well be further patches.

Nearby were some lovely patches of Pterogonium gracile, this being one of only two sites in the county with modern records.

I checked all the ORS exposures on Hardings Down but couldn't find anything of particular interest, though I have a Grimmia sample which is probably just trichophylla. More surprising were two patches of Dicranum majus on the north-facing banks of the lowest of the three Iron Age forts (SS436908), this being new for SS49 and only the 2nd Gower record (the other is from Cefn Bryn in 1989).

Elsewhere, some Pleuridium subulatum on a soil bank at the edge of a field near Llangennith was also new for SS49.

Bryum donianum - not rare but under-recorded?

I had a couple of hours free on Tuesday, forecast was for drizzle so I decided to stick close to home and record the boring-looking monad just outside the village. And it was pretty boring, but I did find Bryum donianum for myself for the first time. There seems to be an awful lot of very variable B. capillare around at the moment, so I thought that was just what this was but collected a bit in case. And a section revealed the distinctive thickened margins.
I do wonder how often I just dismiss this as B. capillare, and perhaps others do too as there don't seem to be many records for it in Brecknock.

Next time I'll venture further to the banks of the Usk, look for Orthotrichum sprucei and rivulare perhaps! Both were recorded there by Ray Woods in 1981...

Friendly Cwm-Morgan

I had a rare day out bryophyte recording in VC44 on Sunday having dropped Bea at a sewing class near Newcastle Emlyn. I chose to focus on two under-recorded tetrads around Cwm-Morgan, on the border with Pembrokeshire. SN33C started quietly with a churchyard and lane banks, but I was then approached by a lady who said that she and her husband had just moved into a smallholding there and were interested in the wildlife on their land, and would I be interested in looking at their moss-rich woodland. This proved to be a lucky encounter, as their section of Cwm Banddu held 54 bryophyte species including several of the commoner 'westerners' such as Fissidens celticus, Heterocladium heteropterum, Hookeria lucens, Lejeunea lamacerina, Oxystegus tenuirostris and Saccogyna viticulosa. Dripping rockfaces supported Fissidens adianthoides, Riccardia multifida and Bryum pseudotriquetrum, whilst Aneura 'euromaxima' was in a Chrysosplenium flush. Star find was a 5x4m patch of Rhytidiadelphus subpinnatus, >20km from its nearest known sites in Cwm Gwaun (VC45) and Brechfa Forest.

In SN23X I thought that a loop walk through Cwm-Morgan village and round the lane above the village would produce a good haul of bryophytes, and sure enough minor highlights included Grimmia trichophylla, Marsupella emarginata, Pseudocrossidium revolutum and Saccogyna viticulosa. However, a friendly local walking his dog spotted my handlens, asked me whether I had seen anything interesting, and then said I was welcome to have a look in his woods. These turned out to be gorgeous W17 oak woodland with abundant Dicranum majus and Rhytidiadelphus loreus, a couple of large cushions of Leucobryum glaucum, and at least 20 clumps of Bazzania trilobata (plus another across the tetrad boundary in SN33C).

Spending extra time in these woods produced a couple of really notable bryophytes, although it meant I had no time for a full third tetrad. Instead I scraped 9 additions to SN33D and 7 additions to SN33H on my way back to collect Bea.

Fissidens bryoides var. caespitans

Finding a patch of Fissidens bryoides var. caespitans on a vertical stream bank was probably the highlight of my outing to Caerphilly on Tuesday. The violet rhizoids are rather beautiful under the microscope.

This is the most easterly VC41 record by some margin, though the Atlas indicates that it has been recorded previously in ST18 - presumably in the VC35 part of the hectad.

Schistidium rivulare vs platyphyllum

I'm trying to get to grips with Schistidiums other than S. crassipilum (being practically the only one I saw in Gloucestershire of course). Collected this on a rock in a stream in SO0522 (Cwm Cwarelli) near me, thinking it might be S. rivulare. No hairpoints and the capsules look fairly short (especially the one old one I gathered). Exothecial cells look incrassate to me and the leaf characters look OK for S. rivulare. But... the perichaetial leaves don't really overtop the capsule, and I can't see any stomata on the couple of capsules (one old and one immature) I've checked. Can anyone help?

Nice to get out

For the first time in ages I managed to get out bryophyte recording yesterday, and spent a pleasant couple of hours along Gypsy Lane and in adjacent marshy grassland habitat near Caerphilly (ST1386). This tetrad (ST18I) had 38 taxa recorded previously and should be comfortably over the 60 mark once I've been through the many samples brought home.

I had a couple of those irritating moments where you can't remember the name of something common as you've not been out for ages - it took me a good few minutes to remember Eurhynchium striatum!

The marsh held a few Sphagnum species and also the moss in the photos below. I'm pretty sure this is Straminergon stramineum - the colour and general habit looks right, and it has rhizoids on the backs of some of the leaves (see first photo). However, in size it is intermediate between typical Straminergon and Calliergon cordifolium, and the enlarged basal cells extend all the way to the costa - which is supposed to be a feature of the latter species not the former. Can someone kindly confirm this is indeed Straminergon?