Miniature garden flora

A 1" patch of garden soil with Weissia controversa, Barbula unguiculata, Ephemerum minutissimum & Fissidens taxifolius.

Some casual recording in Julian Woodman's garden surprisingly produced eight species additional to the 170 already listed for ST18B. Arable/garden weeds would appear not to have been well sampled in this square (as I suspect is the case across much of the county) as most additions were from this group. It's always worth exploring friends and neighbours gardens when the opportunity arises as gardens can give a good boost to tetrad lists in non-arable areas.

Identified from this image by Sam as 
Weissia cf longifolia, but to be checked...

Ephemerum minutissimum - spores checked

Dicranella schreberiana

I called into Cornelly allotments for a very brief stop on the way to Julian's, in a failed attempt to take SS88A over the 60 mark, bit did record some nice patches of Microbryum davallianum growing amongst a carpet of Pseudocrossidium hornschuchianum and Lunularia cruciata, so not a wasted 10 minutes.

Rhododendron clearance pioneer bryophytes

Today I stopped to take a very quick look at an area on the valley sides of Cwmdulais (SN618035), which were cleared of dense stands of Rhododendron ponticum four years ago. Vascular plants seem very slow in recolonising and the ground was found to be largely dominated by bryophytes, with the most abundant species being Ceratodon purpureus and Polytrichum juniperinum, with frequent Atrichum undulatum, Bryum capillare, Campylopus introflexus, Cephaloziella divaricata, Dicranella heteromalla, Pogonatum aloides and Polytrichastrum formosum. No surprises, but a good indication of the pioneer bryophyte assemblage which develops following ‘Rhody’ clearance on open hillsides. For reference the adjacent vegetation on non-affected slopes is principally Bracken-dominated, though there are some signs of this slowly re-establishing in cleared areas.

Polytrichum juniperinum

Ceratodon purpureus & Dicranella heteromalla

Interestingly Yellowhammers still occupy the Rhody areas, both cleared and dense stands, and we saw 7+ nearby in Sandra's aunties garden.

Banc John (SN60Z)

I spent and hour and half this afternoon in the n.w. corner of NPT in mostly acidic upland grassland, heath and mire habitats. It was very dark, but thankfully dry, and I managed to get the square total up to 86. Nothing terribly exciting but Pohlia camptotrachela (photos below) was a new species for me and is only the 6th tetrad in vc4. It was growing on a clay bank adjacent to a stream with associates including fruiting Dicranella rufescens (photo above). Adjacent mire held a little Sphagnum capillifolium ssp. capillifolium (photo above), this surprisingly only the 8th vc41 tetrad, although there are 42 tetrads in which the binomial has been recorded. An Adidas trainer in the middle of an area of acid grassland supported fruiting Bryum capillare and Ceratodon purpureus.

In the same tetrad, a carpet of Sphagnum squarrosum was noted under willows on the east side of Bryn Mawr.

Waungron, Grovesend

I found some Didymodon fallax in fruit during this morning's Alfie-time, at a small coal spoil site (SN599020) near home that has long been overgrown with dense mat of Calliergonella cuspidata. The fruiting plants, found growing on a crust of soil on a mound of broken concrete (photo below), had leaves considerably more recurved than the bulk of plants noted elsewhere at the site. Although the leaves and reddish colour of the lower leaves suggested ferrugineus (a species for which capsules are unrecorded in Britain), closer examination confirmed it was indeed just fallax. Elongate cells on the adaxial side of the costa ruled out insulanus, although I must confess these cells weren't as defined as illustrated (photo below).

There were no species of any real note, but Syntrichia ruralis ssp. ruraliformis and fruiting Dicranella varia provided some local interest.

SN60I Cwmcerdinen verges

It surprises me sometimes how many species you can find in the most unlikely looking spots. Yesterday I stopped at the cattle grid at the entrance to the village as there was a bit of tarmac and flushed gravel to look at before I headed on to my target of the riparian woodland. In the end I spent nearly an hour in this area where I found a base-rich seepage dominated by Pellia endiviifolia and Dicranella varia as well as a section of verge with species such as Solenostoma gracillimum under a mat of Wahlenbergia hederacea. Plus there was some nice wet heath adjacent to the road with all the commoner Sphagnum spp., etc. On a few occasions recently I've found non-fruiting Fossombronia, which is very frustrating! Hoping to take Alfie for a ‘walk’ in the next tetrad today...

SN63660603 Wahlenbergia verge with 'understory' of
Solenostoma gracillimum

SN63680615 cattle grid seepage with abundant
Pellia endiviifolia and Dicranella varia 

mystery moss in Glynneath!

Re: moss erroneously identified as Dicranum fuscescens in earlier post (doh!)

I don't think it's an aberrant from of Campylopus flexuosus. Although some of the the sporophytes on plants in situ are Campylopus-like and there is a tomentum, the leaves don't have the conspicuous differentiated alar cells of that species or the typical leaf cell structure. In fact, the cell structure suggests a Dicranella to me.

It looks like Dicranella heteromalla. I'll edit the earlier post so that the error isn't propagated into cyberspace.