Upper Melincwrt Valley

Upper Melincwrt Valley

The Lower Melincwrt Valley, near Resolven, is a well known and well visited site. It is very accessible, has an impressive, much photographed waterfall and a fairly large population of Hymenophyllum tunbrigense - on a vertical, north-facing sandstone outcrop near the river now difficult to reach and most easily viewed from the path with binoculars. However, the upper part of the valley, above the waterfall, is less well known and much of it is not very accessible, particularly when there is a lot of water running in the brook. H and I have tackled some of the easy parts but much remains unexplored as far as I am aware, particularly where it forms a deep gorge. It is so reminiscent of the Nedd Fechan, Pyrddin and Mellte Valleys, that it makes you think there must be good stuff lurking in there somewhere. Previous visits to the top of the valley, where there is another (small) waterfall, revealed a nice population of Trichocolea tomentella and riverside slabs covered in Nardia compressa.
Yesterday afternoon we tackled the accessible area shown above (vicinity of SN830015) where the rotten logs draped across the stream are plastered with Nowellia curvifolia and Scapania gracilis and some also have large amounts of Odontoschisma denudatum. The occurrence of Blepharostoma trichophyllum, frequent and overlooked though it may be, is also rather nice.

Log with Scapania gracilis and Blepharostoma trichophyllum, Upper Melincwrt Valley

Log covered in Odontoschisma denudata Upper Melincwrt Valley

Odontoschisma denudatum, Upper Melincwrt Valley

Scapania gracilis interwoven with Blepharostoma trichophyllum, Upper Melincwrt Valley

Blepharostoma trichophyllum, Upper Melincwrt Valley

Nant Gelliwion Woodland SSSI

In common with much of eastern Rhonnda Cynon Taff, tetrad ST08U is very under-recorded (just 21 taxa according to Barry's most recent map) despite having considerable potential. Yesterday's Glamorgan Fungus Group outing to the Nant Gelliwion Woodland SSSI gave me the chance to add around 45 species, which were jotted down as a distraction from the fungal fun.

 

 In truth we barely reached the SSSI as there was much to see on the approaches from Maritime Industrial Estate, though the little bit of it we did see looked very promising (photo above). A rotten log was covered in Nowellia (photo below). I'll definitely be returning for a proper look.

 

On returning to the Industrial Estate, there was rather a nice patch of Calliergonella lindbergii on tarmac.

Wern Ddu (again) and Rudry

I made a trip to Wern-ddu yesterday to have a look for that bluetail, but on arrival there was already quite a crowd of assembled birders - some of whom cheerfully told me that they'd been there for several hours without seeing it. I lack the patience for that kind of thing, so quickly left to check out the much more easily twitched Fissidens limbatus found by Barry a few days earlier (thanks Barry...and you weren't exaggerating when you said it was tiny).

Fissidens limbatus

On the way there was a tempting pile of limestone rubble and spoil from past quarrying at Cefn Onn, which held plenty of (putative!) Leiocolea badensis and some more tiny Fissidens which will probably prove to be limbatus. A rotten log was covered in Nowellia, which might be new for ST18. As Barry mentioned, this north-facing slope is very mossy indeed and will surely reward a more thorough survey.

Probable Leiocolea badensis

Nowellia curvifolia

My main aim of the day was to look for Leptodontium flexifolium at Rudry Common, found here by  Roy Perry in 1974. I'm pleased to report that it is still grows here 43 years on!

Leptodontium flexifolium

Leptodontium flexifolium with deciduous stubby leaves at shoot tips

Leptodontium flexifolium habitat

It proved to be quite frequent on thin peaty soil around sandstone outcrops, mostly growing under slight overhangs. The main associate was Ceratodon purpureus (the overwhemingly dominant bryophyte here) with smaller quantities of Polytrichum piliferum and Campylopus introflexus. It looks like the whole site gets burnt regularly, which perhaps aids the persistence of the Leptodontium. This tetrad (ST18Y) should now be over 60 species.

Tetrad bashing in RCT and Bridgend counties

On Thursday last, H and I spent 2 hours in the Bryn Du Sitka Spruce plantation above Maerdy, RCT (SS99U). Roy had done some recording in the tetrad in 2005, but judging from his records he hadn't looked in the forests. Conditions were not ideal. The ground was frozen solid in most places and it was uncomfortably cold, but we managed to get the tetrad count up to 100. Nothing very exciting but willows along the forest track supported a variety of epiphytes absent from Roy's list, including Colura and Orthotrichum lyellii.  In our experience, Colura is not as abundant in RCT forests as it is in NPT, but there's a lot more forest to look at. The tracks here have been dressed with large amounts of limestone gravel so we were not surprised to see a predictable suite of calcicoles such as Didymodon ferrugineus, Ditrichum gracile and Campylium protensum in the base-rich verges. A small population of Pyrola minor was a bonus - this is now a widespread species in Glamorgan's plantations - and an interesting toadstool (something in the Strophariaceae) growing on Sitka wood chips is yet to be identified.
A trip this afternoon to the Pen-y-Moel plantation in the Upper Ogwr Valley, Bridgend, only added a handful of new species, but now brings the species count for SS99G to 61 and SS99H to 82.
The abundance of species like Rhytidiadelphus loreus,  Plagiothecium undulatum and Nowellia curvifolia in Glamaorgan's Sitka Spruce plantations is very significant, bearing in mind that most of these forests were planted on moorland above the line of enclosure; i.e. land that was cleared of forest in prehistoric times. All these species were regarded as scarce in Glamorgan 40 years ago.

Nowellia curvifolia

Mynydd Garthmaelwg

On Saturday we had a family excursion to this mixed woodland, also known locally as Smaelog or Smilog, or just plain old Llantrisant Forest. The kids soon lost interest in looking for mushrooms and spent a fair while mucking about climbing on logs, which gave me some time for bryo recording. This part of RCT is seriously under-recorded and the two main tetrads covering the forest, ST08H and ST08C, had only 24 and 4 bryo taxa recorded respectively.

We walked alongside a large clearfell which proved rather good, with a small rotten log covered in Nowellia curvifolia and a few small cushions of Leucobryum growing on humus. As Barry and Charles have noted in earlier blog posts, the relative lengths of the upper and lower parts of the leaves proved unhelpful in determining the species due to the variability of this feature. But like Barry and Charles I was able to take a leaf section to confirm it was, as expected, L. juniperoideum.

 

On a trackside bank were some good patches of Rhytidiadelphus triquetrus, an uncommon species in south-east Glamorgan. It's a big forest and I'm sure there'll be plenty of other bryophytes to discover. I look forward to returning.

Nant Cae-dudwg

In February I made a start on ST09W by visiting the spoil tips north of Cilfynydd. In a blog post at the time (see here) I mentioned that I was saving the Nant Cae-dudwg (in the same tetrad) for when I had a little more time, and being lucky enough to have a few spare hours this morning I thought it was about time I paid this area a visit.

 

I walked the length of the footpath within ST0992, which runs along the north bank of the stream through both wooded and open areas. After feeling a bit rusty for the first hour (I hadn't done any square bashing for 6 weeks) things picked up and by the time I'd reached the NE corner of the monad a good list of taxa had been accumulated, albeit with nothing of special interest. The highlights up to this point were a few plants of Colura calyptrifolia on willow (the spindly diagonal trunk in front of the holly in the photo below) and quite a lot of Physcomitrium pyriforme (photo) on a ditch bank alongside the access track.

 

I was about to head back but a stony flush in the woodland across the stream caught my eye so I waded across for a look. There was no obvious excitement here, but nearby a rotten ash log was covered in Nowellia curvifolia and Riccardia palmata (photo).

A few metres further on another rotten log had more Riccardia and quite a lot of Trichocolea tomentella, which extended beyond the log over quite a large area, looking rather fetching among the marsh marigolds.

75 species were recorded in the field and I still have plenty of samples to go through, so along with the almost entirely different flora of the coal tips this tetrad will now be up to a pretty respectable total.

Rustwort at Whiteford

Nowellia curvifolia was noted growing on a small, well-decayed, fallen branch of Corsican Pine under one of the conifer blocks at Whiteford Burrows on Tuesday, this being unexpected at such a dry and coastal location. Lophocolea heterophylla was the only direct associate noted on the log, although the usual larger pleurocarps Pseudoscleropodium purum and Rhytidiadelphus triquetrus were abundant in the immediate vicinity.

Nowellia growing on log centre-front, an unexpectedly well-illuminated and dry coastal site

Sam’s Pembs and Carms bryofloras show just one coastal record for Pembs in what appears to be a sheltered location and David Holyoak’s Cornish bryoflora also only shows one coastal locality. The new atlas however, does indicate that this is a species which is spreading, so perhaps we can expect to find it in the lowlands a little more frequently.

The distribution map shows Nowellia is well-recorded by Charles and Hilary in woodlands of NPT, although it would be interesting to know in which habitats and on what timber they have found it?

Brechfa valley yesterday

A half hour wander in a previously unexplored valley in the forestry a couple of miles from home (there are lots of similar ones here!) produced the bryophilous fungus Octospora rubens and the first Brechfa Forest record of Riccardia latifrons.  The latter was growing over Nowellia on a log and a conifer stump, and had no oil bodies when microscoped.  The walk also gave a few photos for me to Tweat, as I've just joined that scary world @sambbryo!

No Riccardia in this patch...