Days in the Black Mountains - 1 Hatterall Ridge

In contrast to the Brecon Beacons - which Graham and I surveyed systematically in the early/mid 2000s - the Black Mountains are very under-recorded.  They have relatively fewer crags than the Beacons, but those which are present hold some very base-rich rock.  Star species include Seligeria patula and Scapania calcicola on Tarren yr Esgob, an old record of Amblyodon dealbatus, and even a historic claim of Myurella julacea.  We hope to fill in some gaps in recording this year, and I made a start on two days in early-mid January 2018.

My first day was spent in Monmouthshire, where I filled in three marginal tetrads: the fragmentary SO23R and SO32E held fewer than 20 species each, but SO23V was pretty rich, with well over 100 species.  I walked up on to the Hatterall Ridge from the east, between the Red Darren and Black Darren in Herefordshire.  Once on the ridge I marched north to the northernmost point of VC35, which is marked by a tiny cairn.  The northernmost bryophyte in the county turned out to be Rhytidiadelphus squarrosus, and half an hour of combing the dry blanket bog produced just 11 species.  Surprise highlight of the area was a patch of leggy Bilberry at >600m altitude that sported 10+ tufts of Ulota bruchii and a tuft of Orthotrichum pulchellum!

The blanket bog on the Hatterall Ridge is mostly very dry and degraded, but I made a few DAFOR lists as I worked my way south.  Highlights were a 1x1m mound of Sphagnum capillifolium rubellum at SO275311, 10s of square metres of S. cuspidatum and S. papillosum in an area of pools at SO281306, and a few shoots of Cephalozia connivens in the latter area.  Cowberry and Crowberry were prominent features of the area.

A contrast to the blanket bog/moorland was provided by the hillside above Trevelog, at 420-450m altitude; this accounted for the majority of the bryophyte diversity in SO23V.  There were Old Red Sandstone boulders with Ptychomitrium polyphyllum, Seligeria recurvata and Tortella fasciculata, a deep valley with Entosthodon obtusus, Ditrichum gracile, Gymnostomum aeruginosum and abundant Conocephalum salebrosum, and a series of base-rich rills with Philonotis calcarea, Palustriella falcata, Jungermannia exsertifolia, Leiocolea bantriensis, Plagiomnium ellipticum and P. elatum.  Star find was some dense patches of Riccardia incurvata alongside one of the rills, new for the Black Mountains and VC35.

After these riches I reckoned the tetrad was well-covered, so climbed back up to the ridge so as to head southwards to SO32E.  En route I noticed a frozen flush high on the hillside in SO22Z, so headed for it.  My logic was that if a spring/flush was cold enough to be frozen when the rest of the hill had thawed then it should hold something rare.  I followed it upwards, and found two extensive patches of Sphagnum platyphyllum at SO286297 & SO287297 - my logic had proved right!  This was a new species for the Black Mountains and VC35, and is a long way south of its nearest colonies in mid Wales and the Long Mynd.  It was also the most well-marked S. platyphyllum I have ever seen, with large apical buds, pale stems, large stem leaves and regularly monoclade shoots.

SO32E still beckoned, and on my way there I spied another rushy spring on the ridge edge.  This too held Sphagnum platyphyllum at SO297287, as well as S. capillifolium rubellum and S. papillosum.  The final fragmentary tetrad produced 17 species, which was all that could be expected from a few hundred square metres of dry, patch-burnt blanket bog.  All in all it was a good day! 

A frosty day at Llantrisant Common

On 28th December I spent a sunny day recording bryophytes on Llantrisant Common with Karen Wilkinson and Caroline O'Rourke.

Although the weather was beautiful the ground frost never cleared - Karen was reduced to ripping up chunks of frozen Sphagnum to take home to identify. We probably missed some smaller species as a result - there was no chance of picking through Sphagnum in the field to look for small liverworts, for example.

We covered the western bits of the common and succeeded in upping tetrad ST08M from 46 to 75 taxa. The existing site list was largely made up of records from CCW vegetation surveys in the 90s, topped up with a few grots I recorded in 2015. There were no epiphytes on the list however, and these made up the bulk of the additions. We'd hoped to re-find Scapania paludicola, recorded in several places by CCW, and got excited by some promising Scapania in M15 wet heath, but this proved on closer inspection to be S. irrigua.

The highlight of the day was a small patch of Atrichum crispum close to a stream (5th Glamorgan tetrad, top photos below). Other finds included Calliergonella lindbergii (below left) among short grass in several places, Pseudephemerum nitidum and vegetative Physcomitrium pyriforme (hopefully safe to record) rubbing shoulders in a rushy ditch (below right) and Orthotrichum stramineum on an old willow.

 

Karen recorded 6 species of Sphagnum including S. fimbriatum and S. fallax new for the site, as well as some beautiful wine-red S. capillifolium.

We strayed into the southern part of the common, which falls within ST08L, and took the total for that tetrad from 53 to 63 taxa. We didn't have time to explore the extensive eastern side of the common and are planning a return visit sometime...

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.