Ton-up

Actually more like ton-down: I have fewer than 100 tetrads left unsurveyed for bryophytes in Monmouthshire (VC35)!  Bea had a birthday party just across the border yesterday, so I had nearly 4 hours to record 1.5 tetrads in the White Castle area.  Both were good examples of typical NE Monmouthshire - lovely rolling landscape with deep-cut streams and lane banks exposing neutral Old Red Sandstone.  Highlights among the 77 species recorded in SO31Y (Upper Cwm lanes) were (+indicates photo): +Eurhynchium schleicheri (abundant on one lane bank), +Plagiothecium curvifolium (fruiting on a large tree-stump), +Pylaisia polyantha (one large patch on a fallen canopy Ash branch), Platygyrium repens (a few patches on roadside Clematis), Rhynchostegiella teneriffae (frequent on ORS rocks in a stream gully) and Mnium stellare (large patches on stream bank), as well as the full suite of regular epiphytic Orthotrichum and some wall, track and tarmac 'grots'. 

I made a start on SO31Z in 2007 (Bont), so topped up that lanes list with a visit to a locality where a footpath crossed a deep-cut stream (Red Castle cwm), taking the tetrad total up to 79 spp.  Yesterday's highlights included +Plagiochila porelloides & +Scleropodium cespitans sharing sandstone outcrops, Rhynchostegiella teneriffae in the stream, and Mnium stellare on the stream bank.  It's really good to know what the background bryophyte flora of this part of the county is like.

Dyffryn Gardens revisited

Some casual recording at the gardens last weekend produced the most convincing Glamorgan Oxyrrhinchium schleicheri I have seen to date. Although many leaves lacked the twisted leaf tips, plenty had them, but more importantly the main stems were growing horizontally through the soil, the plants had a very bushy habit but cell measurements sealed the deal. The species was scattered above the rockery hillock in the background of the above photo.

Clyne Common pit stop

Not quite Telaranea europaea, but fruiting Oxyrrhynchium hians was new for me today - on a soil bank under scrub on the edge of Clyne Common, Swansea. I can see George recorded fruiting plants last year and Sam has two records from Pembs, but it's not listed as having been recorded fruiting in Carms, so it's clearly not that common an occurrence.

...saving T. europaea for next week...

East of Skenfrith

The River Monnow forms the border between England and Wales for several miles, but at Skenfrith there is a small section of the river's east bank in VC35 - most of which is in tetrad SO42Q.  A stop in this eastern outlier last week produced very little of note on a roadside, so this morning I made another visit to the tetrad - on a lane at St Fraed's.  Highlight was abundant Eurhynchium schleicheri, including one patch with sporophytes (I've only seen it fruiting twice previously).  Also of local interest were Porella platyphylla and Mnium stellare.  There's still the Monnow itself to do, with access along a riverside footpath, so this far-eastern Welsh tetrad should scrape above 75 in the end.

Eurhynchium schleicheri has characteristically crowded upright branches;

this patch looks squashed because I had to take it home for a photo (I forgot my camera again).

One of the underground stolons typical of E. schleicheri.

Also at Cosmeston...

It was great to see the Thatch Moss in situ, but I was almost as excited to find two other species new to me during a brief foray after the thatch photo session.

Firstly, I spent a little while investigating the mixed bryo community growing on the clayey margin in the SE corner of the western lake, while Barry was busy trying to hook stoneworts with his home-made grapnel. This included a nice patch of Bryum gemmiferum, which appears to be the first record for East Glamorgan. Associates were Pohlia melanodon, Didymodon tophaceus, Dicranella varia and Bryum dichotomum. It was noticeably taller and paler than the latter.

Bryum gemmiferum

 There are some gemmae in focus near the bottom left of the photo if you click to enlarge.

Bryum gemmiferum habitat

While using the board-walk to get back to the car I remembered the photo in Sam's Pembs flora of Amblystegium radicale growing on the base of dead Phragmites, so took a brief detour into the reedbed and grabbed a handful of moss from this habitat. Sadly it wasn't the Amblystegium, but turned out to be Oxyrrhynchium speciosum, which I think is new for ST16. A few photos below - it looks to have all the hallmarks of this species: dark green and widely-spaced leaves, strongly toothed margins, long nerve, twisted tip, complanate branches - but if anyone disagrees with the ID please let me know!