Trostre sidings

Snippets of interest from wet woodland near the railway sidings at Trostre included a little Ulota calvescens on the willows plus Calliergon cordifolium with capsules mounted upon impressively long setae, the latter a first for me of this normally barren species. However, at the same site, a crude estimate of 500+ emerging Twayblades in a 50m x 50m area stole the show.

Chasing ghosts

I headed to Hensol Forest yesterday afternoon with thoughts of Ghostwort in my mind. There is a lot of Sphagnum in the wet woodland just to the north of Pysgodlyn Mawr, which seemed a good place to search for it. As it turned out, however, there wasn't a lot of birch in the woodland and it didn't take me long to roll back (and replace) the carpets of Sphagnum from around the base of the few birch trees - unsurprisingly, no Cryptothallus was forthcoming (all I found was a small toad).

This left some time for general recording so I had a poke around the rotten logs nearby, with one particularly splendid example being almost covered in Riccardia palmata and a few smaller patches of Nowellia curvifolia.

On the other side of the lake, a large willow had a tuft of Ulota which looked promising for calvescens - and so it proved when checked under the microscope (the rows of elongated cells inside the leaf margins were very clear).

These and a few other additions took the total for tetrad ST07N from 75 to 85 (the majority of the previous records coming from a visit Sam made to Pysgodlyn Mawr exactly five years earlier).

I headed a bit further south into ST07M, which had a list of only 6 bryophyte species. Following a small stream through the mixed woodland bumped this total up to 52, including Orthodontium lineare, a bit more Nowellia and, more excitingly, two patches of Loeskeobryum brevirostre.

Among these records L. brevirostre, U. calvescens and R. palmata are all new for the Vale - which highlights just how under-recorded this part of the county is.

Please look for Ulota

After several hints that Ulota taxonomy was about to change (is the information that Ulota crispa comprises three species a 'spoiler' or a cause for concern?!), British bryologists now have no excuse to bury their heads in the sand.  Tom Blockeel has published an excellent overview of Ulota in the last Field Bryology, complete with a key and photos of endostome and exostome teeth.  There are only a few Welsh Vice-counties listed for each segregate species, with Ulota intermedia in VC41 a bit of a surprise, so there's a lot to be found.  With this in mind I have collected a few Ulota this summer, including U. crispa and U. crispula on willows at 300m altitude near Llyn Ogwen in Snowdonia (U. crispa photo above; I photographed the dull species); U. crispa on willows near Capel Curig; U. crispa on a lowland Hawthorn at Llangua in Monmouthshire; U. crispula on Hazel at 150m altitude at Gwernogle in Carmarthenshire; and U. intermedia on Lundy. 

Now is the perfect time to look for U. crispula and U. intermedia, because both seem to have old/post-ripe capsules, whereas U. crispa is still unripe/ripe with calyptrae.

Ulota calvescens near Monmouth

I stopped briefly at Dixton Embankment LNR on my way back from the school run and spotted a single tuft of Ulota calvescens.  This is, at long last, the first record of this spreading species for VC35.  Perhaps surprisingly, it was less than 50m from the eastern boundary of Monmouthshire, despite U. calvescens being a hyperoceanic moss.

Bryncoch birthday treat

Perhaps there aren't too many who would consider spending a couple of hours wandering around Bryncoch Tip and the surrounding area a birthday treat! However, I do and yesterday my treat gave boosts to SN70F & SN70K, now on 117 and 78 taxa respectively. There was plenty of general interest, but the only real highlight was Ulota calvescens growing on a Hazel branch. Since its initial discovery in the county on 6th March last year, we have now recorded it in eight tetrads.

More Ulota on rock

Following Barry's recent post, I thought it was worth posting some photos of Ulota bruchii growing on a sandstone block on the northern part of Merthyr Common in March 2015. The rock was situated in an exposed moorland position and the Ulota came as quite a surprise. There were three cushions in total, two of which are visible within the large patch of black lichen in the photo below.

Ulota bruchii growing on an exposed sandstone block

Close up of one of the U. bruchii cushions

Ulota query

Even though the whitish spreading/erect peristome is suggestive of drummondii, I'm suspecting this is just bruchii. The habitat was unusual in that it was growing on rock (ORS quartz conglomerate) fully exposed on a south-facing slope on Cefn Bryn. I've not looked at it under the microscope yet, but if anyone has any thoughts I'd be interested to hear. Possibly one to hang on to giving the proposed split?

dry voucher

wetted plants in situ

habitat

Little else of any real note, though a good area of the perennial favourite Ptilidium ciliare amongst Heather and lichens, new for SS58.

Ulota calvescens, at last

I finally joined the calvescens club today. After looking for this species a few times in Cardiff in late winter, the usual thing happened - I chanced across it while doing something different. I wasn't even looking at bryos while surveying Marsh Fritillaries at Nany y Crimp SSSI (north of M4 J47) today, but this large tuft on a dead willow stem was so striking that it was unmissable.

As often happens, I'd been wondering if I was overlooking it (among other Ulota), but having seen the real thing I'm pretty sure I haven't seen it until now (unless it is not usually so striking).

Ulota calvescens on rock

I found a single tuft of Ulota calvescens on a capstone of a roadside wall south of Cwmgors (i.e. the Nant-y-Gaseg bridge parapet immediately s.w. of the Abernant Tip turning SN70310858) today, which seemed a bit odd. Sure enough, when I checked I could find no reference to it growing on rock. I also found two tufts on an Oak trunk in Llewelyn Park, Swansea a week or so ago, so at least 4 Glamorgan sites now.

Ulota calvescens in Neath Port Talbot

After looking at lots of Ulota specimens in the Pentrecwydau forestry between Resolven and Glyn Neath, which were mostly  bruchii/crispa types,  a suitable looking tuft with tallish sporophytes and sparsely hairy calyptra was spotted on a branch of one of the hundreds of willows (mostly Salix cinera) that occur along the service road at SN8425/0482. It was growing in an epiphytic community that included Orthotrichum affine, O. pulchellum, Cryphaea heteromalla, Metzgeria furcata and a few others. It was impossible to get a photo of the plant in situ, but we managed to sample a few shoots for identification. The photo below shows the obvious vitta, which I presume confirms the identification.

Ulota calvescens in Glanymor Park, Loughor

Two tufts found in a 20 minute search, one on Salix cf. x fragilis, another on Populus alba. I only had my phone so the shots are pretty hopeless, but they still convey the general impression of sparsely hairy calyptrae and longish setae. Even though the capsules were unripe and presumably the setae not fully elongated, this feature immediately caught the eye. The presence of a vitta seems to nail the id.

Note the leaf edge is curled up in the lower image making the vitta appear closer to the margin than it actually is.

Ulota calvescens - now fruiting on a tree near you

This photo was taken last April at Carmel, but the season for spotting this increasingly frequent moss has now begun.  I found a few tufts with young capsules and classically sparse-haired calyptrae today near Pembrey.  The very long seta is also characteristic. 

Beware that some Ulota calvescens can be hairier than this, resembling U bruchii, so you sometimes need to check the mature leaves from lower parts of a stem (ie the darker green/brownish leaves not fresh young ones) for a 'vitta' of long, narrow, hyaline cells running up from the leaf base about midway across from nerve to margin.  It's possible that some U bruchii and U crispa might be this sparsely haired, but that would be a rare occurrence.

Ulota calvescens had two Welsh and only one or two English records at the time of the first Atlas, and when I published the Pembs Flora in 2010 my Pembs record was mirrored by two in SW England and the two historic N Wales ones.  Graham and I have now found several colonies in Brecs, Carms and Ceredigion, and today's record is the 10th for Carms.  There are also lots of records from the Pennines, we had it in Dorset last summer, and even in East Sussex on the last BBS Spring meeting.  This would have been unthinkable 10 years ago! 

People might have overlooked hairy forms, and these seem to be relatively frequent in the Pennines, but I doubt very much that these classic sparsely hairy forms would have been missed.  I am absolutely sure that this is another spreading Colura-type bryophyte that is benefitting from coniferisation, reduced pollution and climate change.

Ulota calvescens revisited

I picked out a calvescens calyptra from bottom of packet - pics should give an idea of hairiness.

A whole (U)lotta fun

Flora Briofitica Iberica Vol V, which was published last summer/autumn, moves us on several steps in Ulota identification.  This was covered by Dr Francisco (Paco) Lara at the BBS Orthotrichum workshop too.  FBI separates U. crispula from U. crispa, but another species Ulota intermedia is about to be described so British bryologists aren't yet being officially told about the crispula split in anticipation of further work.  You have probably all seen U. crispula as it is pretty common in lowland areas: it's the very short-capsuled Ulota with relatively un-furrowed dry capsules whereas U. crispa has deeply furrowed capsules as in the picture below.  The third species U intermedia is more like crispula but is northern and upland - I have a candidate from Brechfa Forest which is being examined in Spain.  So, please try to collect representative Ulota from Glamorgan just in case.  Paco reckoned that U bruchii is so distinct in its narrow mouths that one scarcely needs to think about it!