Declining acidophiles

Just before Christmas I spotted three uncommon mosses at Dingestow: Plagiothecium latebricola was new for the area (bryophyte number 242), Bryum moravicum was the 2nd Dingestow record and the first in VC35 since 2008, and Aulacomnium androgynum used to be frequent at Dingestow in 1999/2000 but was last seen in VC35 in 2009.  The Plagiothecium is remarkably small and easily ignored/overlooked, but formed a dense cover over ca. 30 square cm of a huge log.

Little match sticks - not really in our patch

I have just been going through some old bryophyte pictures - deleting the rubbish ones and puzzling over some unlabelled ones.  I came across one of Aulacomnium androgynum (which I haven't seen in Wales for ages and possibly since I took this photo) which I took during the 2005 Ceredigion BBS meeting.  There were several tufts growing on an oak tree in Cwm Doethie - not too far from the Carmarthenshire border!

I notice it is still bracketed for VC46 (I think there is one older record) - wonder if Tom would accept this pic as a voucher?

End of year square-bash at Rhosaman

An afternoon square-bash in SN71G took the square total from 5 to 83. I spent most time searching an area of colliery spoil which produced 63 species directly on spoil; nothing exciting, those of general interest included Aneura pinguis, Archidium alternifolium, Aulacomnium palustre (unusually plants were scattered over a steep dry bank with a broken sward), Calliergonella lindbergii, Gymnostomum aeruginosum, Racomitrium ericoides, R. fasciculare, R. lanuginosum, Riccardia multifida, Sciuro-hypnum plumosum (surprisingly frequent on shaley ground). Despite a decent return I was disappointed not to find any Ptilidium, nor any Weissia or Fossombronia spp. to name but a few I was anticipating.  I didn’t have time to walk the wooded banks of the Aman, which could well have taken the square total over 100 ... another day perhaps!  I did manage to take a very quick look in the river by the footbridge, where Hygrohypnum ochraceum covered the larger rocks along with a little Marchantia polymorpha subsp. polymorpha. This may have been my last bryophyte outing in what’s been another very enjoyable year of recording. Best wishes to all for the year ahead...

PS. If anyone can put a name to the brown lichen I’d be interested to know.

 Racomitrium ericoides-Cladonia portentosa spoil community

  Sciuro-hypnum plumosum 

  Aulacomnium palustre

  Lophozia ventricosa 

  unidentified lichen

 Hygrohypnum ochraceum

BBS in Radnorshire - day 1

I joined 4 other bryologists on Maelienydd Common (SO17) in northern Radnorshire on the first day of the spring meeting.  Two other, larger groups were out elsewhere in the county (SO08 and SO18).  We started with a circuit of the central part of the common, passing neutral to base-rich flushes with Scorpidium cossonii, Campylium, Ctenidium, Breutelia and Sphagna, soon reaching a pool edged with 10,000s of Hamatocaulis vernicosus.  Its inflow stream held intriguing submerged Calliergon giganteum.

yes, that's all Hamatocaulis!

Mark Lawley had visited the site once before and had found Barbilophozia kunzeana (a S42 liverwort) then.  He spotted today's first colony, followed a little while later by another patch found by Lucia and Emily, and rounded off by a patch that I spotted (I've only ever seen it once before, at Julian Woodman's site in SW VC35).  It was a reassuringly distinctive thing, with oddly pinched-looking leaf lobes and a couple of underleaves visible on most shoots.  The habitat of Sphagnum mounds in neutral mire seems pretty consistent, but it is always very localised on a site and is easily missed.  There was also some Scapania cf paludicola with very arched keels, but there's ongoing debate as to whether our Welsh plants are actually that or extreme S. irrigua.  A candidate for Jamesoniella undulifolia (which Mark has found at 3 or 4 sites alongside B. kunzeana) may well just be Odontoschisma.

After lunch we headed slightly further west on the common and worked our way up a slightly base-enriched gully with Trichostomum brachydontium, Gymnostomum aeruginosum and Amphidium mougeotii but sadly nothing more exciting.  The highlight there was Aulacomnium androgynum on a lane bank: a real rarity in Wales with very few records in the last 10+ years.  The list was rounded off with a bevy of Orthotrichum on a bridge and trees.

With a couple of hours left until "tea time" we disobeyed Mark Hill's orders to stay in SO17, which we knew another party were also recording in, and headed west into SO07.  We chose some forestry west of Abbeycwmhir, largely because it wasn't included on the programme for the official SO07 visit on Tuesday.  Almost as soon as we parked I spotted Colura new for Radnorshire on a willow (Radnorshire lacks Colura hunters of Charles and Hilary's calibre!).  Typical conifer plantation species such as Plagiothecium curvifolium (new), Polytrichum perigoniale (new), Pohlia annotina, Diplophyllum obtusifolium and Racomitrium ericoides followed.  All in all, it was a good start to the BBS week in Radnorshire, and I don't even know what the other groups found...

Cairngorms

I had the most fantastic couple of days walking in the western Cairngorms last week. I tried not to get too distracted by bryos but did make a few records and I have quite a few samples still to go through (hopefully including some Kiaeria species). There was way too much snow in the north-facing corries to investigate these for snowbed species, and some of the humidity-demanding species were probably under snow too. The richest area proved to be the riverbank at Tromie Bridge. A few highlights below...

Antitrichia curtipendula on a riverbank alder (Glen Tromie)

Aulocomnium androgynum just a few metres away on humus-covered rocks

 

Hedwigia sp (tbc) again just a few metres away from the above species on riverbank rocks

Ptilium crista-castrensis in open woodland slightly further downstream

Racomitrium lanuginosum heath with Cladonia uncealis at over 1000m on Carn Ban Mor. I was impressed by the extent of the Racomitrium heath up there.

And finally, just to give a flavour of how good the walking was...

Tor Clawdd crags

A thin crust of soil on an acid sandstone craggy ledge was not where I would have expected to find Aulacomnium androgynum. The direct associates seemed a bit of an odd mix too, with Bryum capillare (with very rufifolium-like leaves) and Cynodontium bruntonii. This is the 7th Glamorgan tetrad but only the second of the new millennium, the majority of records being made in the period of 1950's - 1970's.