Parc Lodge Wood bryology

Graham and I needed to visit Parc Lodge Wood - in the Sugarloaf Woodlands SAC of NW Monmouthshire - to see whether water abstraction from a series of springs has been damaging the woodland.  This gave me a chance to look for bryophytes at a SSSI that I had last visited in August 2000, when I found 66 species.  This time I missed Trichocolea, Lophozia ventricosa and Thuidium delicatulum, but added 37 species to the site total: a useful visit!

The Old Sessile Oak woodland is rather impoverished compared with its analogues in the Nedd & Mellte valleys or Meirionnydd (!) but holds locally abundant Dicranum majus and occasional Rhytidiadelphus loreus and is therefore more western feeling than most woods in Monmouthshire.  The stream in the valley bottom supported some Lejeunea lamacerina, Heterocladium flaccidum and Jungermannia pumila, all of which are uncommon in the county, and a spring held Sphagnum fimbriatum and S. palustre.  I completely missed epiphytes in 2000 (or perhaps there weren't any), so 10 common species such as Metzgeria furcata and 3x Ulota were new.

As we left the woodland we passed a small spring with Anagallis tenella, Briza media, Ctenidium molluscum, Campylium protensum and Fissidens adianthoides, and then a stream with Marchantia polymorpha, Scapania irrigua, Dicranella staphylina and Bryum violaceum.  The tetrad needs another visit, to a churchyard and bridge in the east of the square, but today's visit has bumped it up above the 100 mark.

Pluck Lake

Pine Plantation near Pluck Lake

Reading Sam's post 'On Headless Hill' (great title for a thriller), I was reminded of a small colony of Leucobryum juniperoideum I found a couple of decades ago in the pine plantation near Pluck Lake in the Lower Swansea Valley. I haven't really been there looking for bryophytes in recent years, so H and I had a stroll in the woods around the lake this afternoon. Unfortunately no sign of the Leucobryum, and we didn't see any headline species, but I was impressed by how much the habitat has changed in the last 30 years or so. Pleurocarpous carpets dominate the woodland floor with lots of Hylocomium splendens and Pseudoscleropodium purum, occasional patches of Rhytidiadelphus loreus and Pleurozium schreberi, and a small amount of Plagiothecium undulatum. I was surprised by the amount of  Dicranum majus there. Back in the day when Steve Lavender was the Swansea University LSV Conservator, the woodland floor was rather sterile (but great for fungi in Autumn). What is really pleasing now is the way in which the habitat seems to be taking on the upland flavour of a surrogate Sessile Oak Woodland, much like the Neath Valley (and other) plantations have. Over the decades the pines have grown taller, allowing more light to get to the forest floor, and that has obviously provided better conditions for these bryophytes. I love the way these species colonise and transform conifer plantation habitats.

Dicranum majus growing with Dicranum scoparium, Pluck Lake Pine Plantation

Willows around the lake have a typical epiphyte flora, but we couldn't find any Colura.