All gone pear-shaped

Leptobryum pyriforme in the garden, Gorseinon

Physcomitrium pyriforme on a bund at the top of the saltmarsh, Llanrhidian

Tywyn Point scraped slack

Following yesterday's meeting at the offices of RAF Pembrey Sands, we were taken out onto the range, though time was limited as a Tornado was scheduled to come in for bombing practice. Richard Pryce and myself managed to sneak off for 15 minutes to do some recording in the southern ⅓ of the rectangular scraped slack (clearly visible on the Google aerial at SN365048[corrected]). The scrape was still quite barren, particularly bryologically, but the southern margin was found to be a little richer and Amblyodon dealbatus was among the 12 species recorded, with occasional non-fruiting plants found growing all along the 30m southern edge of the scrape. The Carms flora shows the species is already known from the site and was last recorded there by Sam in 2004 (I'm not sure if there have been subsequent visits since publication). I've asked Richard to send me a couple of habitat pics for reference...[Richard's photos now added below, apologies for my mugshot being included, but it shows the scrape edge habitat where the Amblyodon was found perfectly]

Of less significance, but equally as interesting was a small population of Leptobryum pyriforme, this being the first time I have encountered the species in a dune slack. Plants were a little shorter than typical, but the tufted shoot tips, lack of an expanded leaf base and the presence of abundant rhizoidal gemmae (including some around the stem bases) seems to make identification safe in the absence of capsules, but happy to be corrected. The lower two images show the cell structure and the interesting surface sculpturing of the tubers - I can't find very good images of these on line to compare with, but they seem to match illustrations well.

Leptobryum pyriforme

Leptobryum pyriforme, Jersey Marine

I've only ever seen Leptobryum pyriforme in a flower pot before today so I was pleased this afternoon when we found large amounts of it on a weedy bank on the Amazon site in Jersey Marine. It appears to be uncommon in Glamorgan and Wales in general, yet it has a globally widespread distribution in temperate and boreal ecosystems. Non-fruiting material might go unnoticed in ruderal communities among lookalikes such as Trichodon cylindricus and Dicranella schreberiana (also on the Amazon site). In fruit, with those Bryum-like, pear-shaped capsules, it is unmistakable. 

Pyriform ditch

I spent part of Thursday's lunch break looking for bryos in a ditch by the entrance track to Median Farm.  The most obvious moss there was Physcomitrium pyriforme, fruiting abundantly.  Alongside it was a narrow-leaved Dicranoid moss with yellowish setae that looked wrong for Dicranella heteromalla but I couldn't work it out.  Eventually I found a single unripe pear-shaped capsule and noticed that the lower parts of the shoots had red rhizoids and gemmae.  It was Leptobryum pyriforme: an uncommon and totally unpredictable moss in S Wales.  Pohlia camptotrachela and Fossombronia wondraczekii were also in there, and a Sycamore sported some Orthotrichum stramineum and O lyellii.