Crawley Bluff

view east over Nicholaston dunes from the mid-cliff path

It was nice to get out in the sunshine on Friday given the weather we've had recently and look for some reptiles - Adders, Viviparous and Wall Lizards were all tempted out by the brief spell of warm weather. A little casual mossing added three species to the well-worked SS58D, taking it on to 169. The only interesting species of the three was Schistidium elegantulum, with four tufts noted in two locations on rocks alongside the mid-cliff of the bluff. In a soil pocket alongside one of the clumps were a few patches of the distinctive Toninia sedifolia. I did keep an eye open for Rhodobryum, as there is a historical record for this section of cliff, but to no avail.

large tuft of S. elegantulum

 

3 scrappy tufts of S. elegantulum & T. sedifolia

cliff section with 3 scrappy tufts

Nant Cae-dudwg (Part 2)

A couple more goodies from yesterday's outing, checked microscopically tonight.

The first section of the Nant Cae-dudwg I walked along was heavily modified (see photo below), a legacy of past mining activity. The feeder stream indicated by the yellow arrow was chanelled within concrete walls, the tops of which had a nice assemblage of bryophytes.

This Schistidium elegantulum was growing among abundant S. crassipilum and looked markedly different from it, with much longer hair points. At least 6 stomata were present at the base of the capsule I sliced in half.

The blurry rear of the photo above is shown in the photo below - a shaggy mat of Hygrohypnum luridum with young sporophytes. Under the microscope, the brownish granular alar cells and incurved upper leaf margins characteristic of this species were evident.

Schistidium elegantulum in North Wales

Prior to a meeting in Bangor last week I managed a quick potter about outside our hotel, near the pier. On top of a limestone wall was a Schistidium which looked a good candidate for elegantulum, with conspicuous terete hair points. Following the procedure Sam outlined recently, I chopped up a capsule and was pleased to find eight stomata at the base (though only one visible in photo below). I think this confirms it as elegantulum, but I'd appreciate confirmation. According to the Atlas this would be new for VC49.

More asbestos

Just to tie together a couple of previous threads: I had a look at the asbestos roof of the boathouse at Dingestow Court Lake this morning and noted 13 species of moss.  These included a single nice cushion of Schistidium elegantulum with terete white hairpoints and stomata on the capsule (under the microscope).  It's a good time of year for checking S elegantulum capsules as the stomata are easiest to spot when the capsules are unripe.  They need to be sought on the very base of the capsule, where it curves up from the seta rather than on the parallel sides - there are 8(ish) on S elegantulum and 0 (or 1 sometimes) on S crassipilum.

Here is a series of pics I took a few years back for a Field Bryology article on Schistidium elegantulum ID that I never finished writing.  They show how one needs to chop off the base of the capsule, cut that base in half, and then examine the two halves just near the seta to spot the stomata.



Elegant Grimmia

the top of the closest rock has lots of S. elegantulum

A brief revisit to the Penrice Estate today resulted in the discovery of several additional rocks supporting Schistidium elegantulum around the 'Kitchen Garden' [a natural rocky alcove rather than a garden]. I always suspected there would be more than the small colony I initially saw there in 2013 and these 'new' rocks largely supported robust & healthy patches (photo below left), whereas the small colony on the original rocks appeared to in extremely poor health (photo below right).

I brought a small tuft home to re-familiarise myself with the id features and was surprised to find the mid-leaf cell size was smaller than that cited by Smith. This caused some confusion and following the key to the letter my specimen keyed out as confertum, which was clearly wrong. I've kept the voucher, which in every other respect fits elegantulum perfectly. Sam, should you feel the need to check this voucher (bearing in mind you've already confirmed a spec from the original location) I can include it with the batch I keep promising to send you? For ref I also collected some apocarpon-type material, which looked interesting, growing on adjacent rocks which I've still to look at critically. Lichens are something I know little about but Dermatocarpon miniatum var. complicatum, noted growing on the same rocks, looks uniquely distinctive for a safe call.