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?
I have puzzled over similar plants - cordifolium sometimes produces rhizoids. Notice costa in your pic almost to tip of leaf - might be worth checking a few leaves - costa on stramineum usually well short of tip and leaf width of cordifolium about twice that of stramineum.
ReplyDeleteI forget bryo names all the time!
I've not done much for most of December (thanks to the weather!) and was also struggling to remember names. How on earth are we going to cope with all the name changes that are looming...
ReplyDeleteForgetting the names of bryophytes - tell me 'bout it. The problem for all of us is that we are recording other groups at other times of year. I remember having a conversation with the late Quentin Kay decades ago about this and we came to the conclusion that there was a finite number of binomials you can keep in your head at any one time. Unfortunately the head space shrinks with age!
ReplyDeleteWell I'm glad it's not just me that can't remember all the names! Maybe Quentin Kay is right.
ReplyDeleteGraham - all the leaves on the 2 shoots I collected are nerved pretty much to the tip. So maybe it is cordifolium after all? Leaves are 1.5mm wide, which appears intermediate between the two.
Hey, I have just stumbled across this blog when trying to source some Haplomitrium Hookeri for a DNA sequencing project I am undertaking for my PhD. Some really interesting finds (I am still a novice). I went up Brecon beacons today, looking at the confirmed spots (NB atlas) but could not identify any! I was wondering if anyone could help me locate some around the south wales area? Any help will be greatly appreciated and acknowledged in any subsequent papers.
ReplyDeleteThere aren't many places in the Brecon Beacons where Haplomitrium is likely to be found despite it being reasonably widespread on stream edges and by flushes, not least because it's so small and grows as scattered shoots; it's even harder to find elsewhere in Wales. Please email me on my NRW email address (sam.bosanquet at naturalresourceswales.gov.uk) to organise a trip out to locate some, as there are a couple of locations where I think we should be able to find it. Collection would obviously need to be minimal, but with modern DNA techniques I'd hope that won't cause too much of a problem.
ReplyDelete