Something exciting in the Black Mountains

Something a little more exciting than Sphagnum quinqueferium caught my eye during today's Welsh Clearwing surveys in the Black Mountains. A luxuriant 50cm square patch of Antitrichia curtipendula atop a dry stone wall!

The location in SO2627 is about 300m inside VC35. The Atlas shows a pre-1950 dot for SO22. The known site in SO23 (VC42) is around 5km to the north-west of here.

At the zoo

"Someone told me it's all happening at the zoo.  I do believe it, I do believe it's true"

A visit to Bristol Zoo with Bea and Johnny gave me the chance to check on the Antitrichia patch that I found several years ago on a Paulownia tree by the Prairie Dog enclosure.  The Prairie Dogs have been replaced by a Pudu, but the tree is still there and so is a scrappy patch of Antitrichia.

I looked at the Zoo's bryophytes in reasonable detail with Richard Lansdown (whilst our then toddling daughters kept themselves entertained) a few months after spotting the Antitrichia, so I didn't do any other recording today.  However, I noticed a patch of pale moss on top of a Tree-fern and thought that might be worth a look.  Sure enough, it was Leptotheca gaudichaudii - one of the more regular Tree-fern aliens in Britain and Ireland.  I haven't noticed this moss or the Tree-ferns at the Zoo before, but I think it's an area I've bypassed before.

Cairngorms

I had the most fantastic couple of days walking in the western Cairngorms last week. I tried not to get too distracted by bryos but did make a few records and I have quite a few samples still to go through (hopefully including some Kiaeria species). There was way too much snow in the north-facing corries to investigate these for snowbed species, and some of the humidity-demanding species were probably under snow too. The richest area proved to be the riverbank at Tromie Bridge. A few highlights below...

Antitrichia curtipendula on a riverbank alder (Glen Tromie)

Aulocomnium androgynum just a few metres away on humus-covered rocks

 

Hedwigia sp (tbc) again just a few metres away from the above species on riverbank rocks

Ptilium crista-castrensis in open woodland slightly further downstream

Racomitrium lanuginosum heath with Cladonia uncealis at over 1000m on Carn Ban Mor. I was impressed by the extent of the Racomitrium heath up there.

And finally, just to give a flavour of how good the walking was...

Exciting mosses in the Black Mountains

I was surveying Silurian moth habitat on Darren Lwyd today, so it would have seemed rude not to pay my respects to the only known population of Antitrichia curtipendula in south Wales. The crag was looking very different today compared to when Graham visited in January, with all bryophytes looking parched after the recent dry weather. There was a great range of species present on the crag and it took me a while to locate the Antitrichia, but it was pretty obvious once I'd spotted it.

The grapnel-hooked leaf tips were just about discernible with my 10x hand lens. The Field Guide mentions Rhytidiadelphus loreus as a similar species, but I couldn't really see any similarity between the two. Among the many other species on the crag were Pressia quadrata, Frullania tamarisci and Neckera crispa. There was also a female Ring Ouzel nearby.

Later in the day, I investigated some potential Welsh Clearwing birches on the eastern side of Bal Mawr. On the descent I noticed four patches of Leucodon sciuroides on a pollard Ash at SO268297. The Atlas shows several black dots (i.e. recent records) for the Black Mountains, so perhaps this is not such an exciting find here?

Leucodon host tree (moss on other side!)

Around four Leucodon patches on this side of the tree

Antitrichia curtipendula alive and well in south Wales

Yesterday I happened to be passing close to the site near Capel-y-ffin in the NE Black Mountains where Ray Woods found Antitrichia almost 30 years ago, so I had a quick run up to the crags to see if it was still present.  After a bit of searching I eventually spotted about 10 brownish-red patches on a vertical rock face, well above head height, which proved to have the unmistakeable leaf tips with backwards curving teeth.  

It had rained all the previous night, which had probably enhanced the colour of the plant and it might have been more difficult to spot in dry conditions.   Much of the crag is mildly calcareous, with Neckera crispa growing on the most calcareous parts.  In his Flora, Ray mentions that there were two patches, so if it is the same face, then possibly it has spread slightly, or the original patches have fragmented resulting in several smaller patches.  The face is well out of reach of sheep and it is not a place someone is likely to climb, so the population will hopefully continue to thrive.   This is the only known south Wales population - the RDB indicates 8 extant (post 1970) sites in Wales, but it looks like only three or four of the north Wales records are post 2000.