more odd moss on spoil

Today's lunchtime outing with Alfie was to another spoil site just up the road at Grovesend (SN597007). There were no odd-looking Fissidens, but the odd-looking Didymodon I reported last November (see here)[confirmed as icmadophilus], growing on concrete bases not far from this site, was again locally abundant. The 'scope pic shows it alongside fallax and note the adaxial costal cells are predominantly square. The substrate this time was seasonally inundated, fine black spoil - other species present where it occurred would suggest mildly basic conditions. I think previously we cautiously concluded rigidulus provided the best fit, though the outcome was not completely satisfactory. I'll send a sample to Sam to see if can pin it down, but opinions are always welcome. The only other oddities were Homalothecium lutescens growing as an epiphyte on a Hawthorn trunk and what looked like a sterile, flat-leaved Weissia with the same habit as controversa var. densifolia? Other general interest was provided by male plants of Didymodon fallax (photo below) and some nice fruiting patches of Cephaloziella divaricata (bottom photo).

Slade

View along the cliffs west of Slade, the arrowed spot showing a slope below an outcrop where I've
previously recorded Cephaloziella calyculata plus a similar range of species listed below.

It seems like an age since I last looked at the South Gower cliffs, but on the weekend I managed to steal an hour and a half so checked out a section of cliff with virtually no records. I spent the first hour scouring promising looking ground on some outcrops east of Slade but failed to find much of interest. The last 30 minutes thankfully proved to be more productive with species noted in the sward shown below (SS49188551) including Aloina aloides, Bryum donianum, B. kunzei, B. ruderale, Cephaloziella calyculata, Microbryum starckeanum, Pleurochaete squarrosa, Rhynchostegium megapolitanum, Weissia controversa var. crispata, etc..

 Putative Bryum kunzei - I do worry about this one, even though it looks pretty distinct!

Didymodon fallax and the much larger Pleurochaete squarrosa 

Bryum ruderale was particularly common in cliff-top turf in this section

Non-bryological interest was provided by one of the bryoparasitic Pezizales, which keys out Octospora coccinea. This is said to be common in the UK although only 7 records are shown on the NBN. The host was in rather poor condition for identification, but I looked like Bryum dichotomum.

Waungron, Grovesend

I found some Didymodon fallax in fruit during this morning's Alfie-time, at a small coal spoil site (SN599020) near home that has long been overgrown with dense mat of Calliergonella cuspidata. The fruiting plants, found growing on a crust of soil on a mound of broken concrete (photo below), had leaves considerably more recurved than the bulk of plants noted elsewhere at the site. Although the leaves and reddish colour of the lower leaves suggested ferrugineus (a species for which capsules are unrecorded in Britain), closer examination confirmed it was indeed just fallax. Elongate cells on the adaxial side of the costa ruled out insulanus, although I must confess these cells weren't as defined as illustrated (photo below).

There were no species of any real note, but Syntrichia ruralis ssp. ruraliformis and fruiting Dicranella varia provided some local interest.