Poking about in Bridgend

Nothing exciting to report from East Glamorgan I'm afraid, but I have made a couple of brief visits to tetrad SS97J on the way home from working in the Alun Valley. Most of this tetrad is dominated by Bridgend and Waterton Industrial Estates, but mercifully there is a 100m stretch of the Ewenny River in the south-west corner which has a convenient riverbank footpath. This helped boost the tetrad total to 57 taxa, including Cinclidotus fontinaloides, Didymodon sinuosus, Hygrohypnum fluviatile and Fissidens crassipes on a riverside rock.

The most surprising find was the first moss I saw after getting out of the car - several cushions of Dialytrichia mucronata on a wall top several metres above the Ewenny River. I've not seen it in such an exposed location before.

The previous week I'd called in at Bridgend Industrial Estate and recorded a few grots. There are plenty of vacant plots on the estate, so it is probably worth another pit stop sometime to mop up a few more species...

Afon Alun

A visit to Coed-y-bwl to enjoy the Daffodil display provided an opportunity for a little bit of bryologising in this well recorded tetrad. I never saw anything of special note, though it was only the second time I've encountered fruiting Dialytrichia mucronata, which was well-established on Pont Brown. The lane walls were covered in mosses - mostly Thamnobryum alopecurum and Anomodon viticulosus - and a riverside Field Maple was heavily draped with mosses including Neckera pumila. A really lovely mossy site.

Broughton SS49B

Twlc Point, Broughton Bay

From one shy-fruiting pleurocarp to another, this time Homalothecium lutescens (photos below) growing on the north-facing sandy slopes above Twlc Point.

A little further west along the coast, the salt-sprayed Limestone cliffs at Foxhole Point supported a disappointingly impoverished bryoflora in comparison with that on South Gower. Tortella flavovirens was the most common species, growing on rock as well as soil, with the most frequent associates being Amblystegium serpens and Didymodon tophaceus.

Whilst the tarmac in the caravan park was more productive than the cliffs, with species of interest including Dialytrichia mucronata (photo below) growing amongst Syntrichia ruralis ssp. ruralis, along with a little ssp. ruralifomis (bottom left in lower photo), I still only managed to raise the tetrad total to 51.

Alun Valley

I had some time to kill before a site meeting in the Alun Valley yesterday, and for once it wasn't raining - perfect conditions for a bit of mossing in fact. Sam mentioned in his recent Anomodon post that the river by Old Castle Down is base rich and should be very interesting. In fact the water levels were a bit high to find any of the lower flood zone species, but the limestone stepping stones by the ford (SS908756) were carpeted in a mix of Cinclidotus fontinaloides and Dialytrichia mucronata, with a little bit of Porella platyphylla too.

Anomodon was everywhere - on walls, limestone outcrops and tree trunks both by the river and away from it. The river sometimes dries up in the summer  - it would be fascinating to walk the dry riverbed and sample some of the usually inaccessible tree trunks and boughs.

Anomodon viticulosus carpeting a riverside tree

Part of the reason for the recording session was to try and catch up with Marchesinia mackaii, which has eluded me on the limestones of the north Cardiff ridgeway. Sam discovered it at Craig Ddu in 2013 and it proved to be widespread over a fair stretch of wooded limestone crag (SS908754).

This tetrad (SS97C) should be fantastically rich for bryos - the 69 species shown on Barry's latest map reflects the limited recording done to date. I added around 10 species yesterday, the best of which were Neckera pumila on a hazel by the river and Scapania aspera on shaded limestone (SS907756). The Scapania was recorded in this hectad back in the 1970s by Roy Perry, so it's good to get a specific grid ref for it.


I also had a brief look at an unploughed arable margin on Ewenny Down. Riccia glauca was frequent and, as always with arable, I have several specimens which need closer inspection.