Tâf Fechan [SO01K square bash]

Left vc42, right vc41

As I was in Merthyr on Friday and I had a spare hour, I made a quick sojourn into SO01K, which was on a paltry 10 species. Even within my limited time slot I was able to quickly add an additional 64 species to the list for what is undoubtedly a much richer partial tetrad. There was also interest before reaching my target the square, when crossing Pontsarn viaduct I noticed a nice colony of Grimmia orbicularis on the Brecon side, new for vc42 according to the blog county lists.

Once in the square a large decorticated log was found to hold a good colony of Riccardia palmata (below; photo 1) and the limestone outcrops & boulders supported abundant drapes of Neckera crispa on dry cliffs with sheets of Conocephalum salebrosum in damper sections. The most interesting species of the drier sections were Loeskeobryum brevirostre (photo 2), Scapania aspera (photo 3) and Platydictya jungermannioides (photos 4-7), the latter new for Glamorgan with 3 small colonies noted in crevices, but with plenty of the same habitat, it seems likely there will be a strong population at this site.

 

Interest on the wetter sections was provided by Cololejeunea calcarea, Eucladium verticillatum, Leiocolea bantriensis (below; photo 1) and Seligeria acutifolia (photos 2 & 3). Well worth a revist - park on the vc42 side of the bridge, cross over and drop down from the Glamorgan side - very easy access.

 

 

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.

Puzzle Wood - things grabbed in passing

I took Bea and Johnny to Puzzle Wood in the Forest of Dean today.  It's an absolutely marvellous place - straight out of the movie sets (literally) - with deep 'scowles' left by ancient iron ore mining in limestone rocks.  I have been several times over the years, and I guess it's the first place I was ever aware of noticing moss (stringing some kind into Filmy Fern when I was about 10).  This was Bea's third visit, and I jotted down a list of 35 species when we last came to the wood in 1999.  These included the calcicoles Cololejeunea rossettiana (photo), Fissidens gracilifolius, Jungermannia atrovirens (photo), Leiocolea turbinata, Neckera crispa (photo) and Taxiphyllum wissgrillii, all of which I saw today as well.

There were a few additions: Dicranum montanum (photo) and Nowellia curvifolia on logs, Pseudotaxiphyllum elegans on sandstone and Plagiomnium rostratum on limestone.  I am sure that there's more to be found if one didn't have to keep rushing on at the pace of a 7 year old!

Probably the most notable thing, however, was the absence of Sematophyllum substrumulosum.  I looked at many, many conifer logs, Yew bases and fences made of Yew branches and couldn't find any at all.  Conditions seem perfect and it's less than 5km away in NE Monmouthshire.  I suspect that a return visit in 10 or 20 years time will show a different picture, as I'm sure that substrum will be well established by then.

Graig Fawr, RCT

Graig Fawr

Yesterday afternoon, H and I did our weekly square-bashing trip to RCT. We decided to have a look at Graig Fawr, an imposing cirque that overlooks Treorchy in Rhondda Cynon Taff. Old vascular plant records, which list Beech Fern, Oak Fern, Parsley Fern and Wilson's Filmy-fern, suggest that, like Craig y Llyn, it is a refuge for Boreal-montane species. Setting out from a very convenient lay-by on the A4061, we took a track that runs below Graig Fach. A large clump of Neckera crispa draped over a concrete culvert was a good start.

Neckera crispa on concrete culvert below Graig Fach

Access to ledges on Graig Fach and Graig Fawr is difficult and it will take quite an effort to survey this site properly. On the day we took some easier options, firstly checking the lower scree and then climbing into an inviting gully. Below the gully, scree was covered in the usual Racomitriums (aquaticum, ericoides, fasciculare, heterostichum, lanuginosum) and Andrea rothii ssp. falcata, but the gully itself looked more promising.

Gully bisecting the southern edge of Graig Fawr

We noticed a small amount of Hymenophyllum wilsonii on the north-facing wall of the gully and a large population of Huperzia selago, with some individuals as big as dinner plates. These must be of significant age (many decades) and the fact that H. selago is not listed in old records suggests that this gully may not have been visited by many botanists for a long time.

Huperzia selago in gully

This was also suggested by some of the relatively common bryophytes we recorded there which were not in the MM database for this tetrad (SS99H); e.g. Amphidium mougeotii, Batramia pomiformis, Campylopus atrovirens, Hookeria lucens, Hyocomium armoricum, Marsupella emarginata var. aquatica, Palustriella commutata, Plagiothecium denticulatum, Riccardia multifida.

 Marsupella emarginata var. aquatica in gully stream

It was very cold in the gully and persistent hailstones didn't help to maintain our enthusiasm. But towards the top of the gully in the vicinity of SS92709562, in a dim, humid overhang, we found a Rhabdoweisia sp.

 Rhabdoweisia crenulata in humid overhang, Graig Fawr (RCT)

It's good to have Barry's recent photos of R. crispata (Tan-y-Graig) for comparison. The Graig Fawr Rhabdoweisia differs from the Tan-y-Graig plants in a number of ways. Firstly they have larger leaf cells (16-24 microns). Secondly, the mature leaves are relatively broad (usually > 10 cells wide either side of the costa). Thirdly the upper leaf margin has noticeable, large, protruding (often multicellular) teeth.

 Wide leaf tip of Graig Fawr Rhabdoweisia crenulata showing prominent teeth

Multicellular teeth of Graig Fawr Rhabdoweisia crenulata

This looks like Rabdoweisia crenulata (Greater Streak-moss) to me, which was recoded once before in VC41 by Tony Smith (Craig y Llyn in 1961). As always, comments and corrections will be appreciated.

Exploring RCT is time consuming and requires a fair amount of effort, but the rewards are obvious. There's lots of crags and cirques and a substantial amount of conifer forest. Goodness only knows what is lurking on some of those ledges! Our records yesterday bring the total for SS99H up to 75.

Blustery and bleak on the Blorenge

I had two targets on the colliery spoil between the Blorenge and Blaenavon and failed on both: Lophocolea bispinosa doesn't seem to have reached the eastern Valleys yet, and Buxbaumia aphylla was always going to be a long-shot :-)  The wind and drizzle didn't help.

Anyway, I made separate DAFOR lists for a heather/crowberry-dominated colliery tip face (21 spp including Lophozia ventricosa silvicola and Cephaloziella hampeana), and a much more open, parched tip top (6 spp), and also found some Lophozia bicrenata on the side of a gully between two tips.

 A short trip north to Cwm Ifor, where a stream has carved a narrow ravine at the junction of the Millstone Grit and Carboniferous Limestone, produced a completely different flora.  Neckera crispa was amazingly abundant and was fruiting copiously, and there were various other calcicoles including Scapania aspera and Jungermannia atrovirens, although I couldn't see any sign of several of the notable species I found in the ravine in 2000/2003.  An outcrop of Millstone Grit above the ravine held abundant Barbilophozia attenuata and there were a few patches of Sphagnum squarrosum in a flush. 

My entire 1.5 hour visit was spent in tetrad SO21K, which is one of the richest in VC35 with >200 species recorded.  I visited many times between 1999 and 2003, including with Graham and with the Border Bryologists, so it was nice to return to old haunts.  Perhaps surprisingly, given previous coverage, I added 11 species to the tetrad total, so the day was useful.

Cefn Onn

On Sunday morning I took a quick stomp from Parc Cefn Onn up to the old limestone quarry on the ridgeway north of Cardiff. Virtually the whole walk fell within tetrad ST18S, which must be one of the richest for bryophytes in south-east Glamorgan - a mixture of wooded country park, acid woodland on the lower slopes and limestone woodland and exposed outcrops at the ridgetop. I had a cursory look at the bryos back in 2011, and a few others (including Peter Sturgess, who's now signed up to this blog - hello Peter!)  have done some recording too, but it's never had a thorough survey. There's also some conifer plantation within the same tetrad, on the Caerphilly side of the ridgeway, which hasn't been looked at.

The wooded limestone outcrops below the quarry support some impressive carpets of Anomodon viticulosus (see photo above), plenty of Neckera crispa and Tortella tortuosa, and smaller quantities of Eucladium verticillatum and Cirriphyllum crassinervium.

Neckera crispa

The quarry itself looked fairly horrific on first impression - it was being used for overwintering cattle and you can see the effect this has had in the photo below.

The quarry sides were undamaged, however, and produced a good range of calcicoles including Aloina aloides (fruiting), Ditrichum gracile and Trichostomum crispulum.

Ditrichum gracile

An area of short limestone turf above the quarry produced Brachythecium glareosum, Campylium protensum, Rhytidiadelphus triquetrus and, more surprisingly, a small patch of Hylocomium splendens (presumably in an area that has been leached).

Finally, an area of hilltop limestone outcrops to the west of the quarry (photo below) added Pseudocrossidium revolutum as well as more Ditrichum gracile. I found Dicranum bonjeanii in this area in 2011 but couldn't relocate it on Sunday.

Thanks to Peter Sturgess for suggesting the ID of Ditrichum gracile, which he'd found in the same area. I was put off the scent by the small size of the patches at Cefn Onn (only 2cm tall), but am pretty sure this is what they are.

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!