Margam sidings

Also known as 'Kenfig marshalling yards', this area is now a stunning brown-field slack full of  goodies.

The 'railway fen' always seems to provide something new each time I visit and a small patch of Pseudocalliergon lycopodioides at SS7913483514 provided the highlight of yesterday's visit. Whilst Calliergonella cuspidata was largely dominant, there's also a lot of Drepanocladus polygamus and D. aduncus in the flooded areas along with a wide range of interesting vascular plants and charophytes; those noted yesterday included Chara virgata, Equisetum variegatum (a), Pyrola rotundifolia subsp. maritima (lf), Cladium mariscus (o-lf) Juncus acutus (lf), J. subnodulosus (la), and Scirpoides holoschoenus. Not too shabby for an area of abandoned industrial land!

L: P. lycopodioides, R: Location shown by plastic box

 L: Equisetum variegatum, R: Scirpoides holoschoenus

L: Chara virgata, R: Cladium mariscus

Leaves of P. lycopodioides, D. aduncus & D polygamus

The drier gravelly sidings also provided a little interest with some nice carpets of Amblystegium serpens var. salinum growing alongside species such as Rhynchostegium megapolitanum, Bryoerythrophyllum recurvirostrum and rather oddly Neckera complanata on open flat ground. A 'golden road' of Schistidium crasspilum was a fine spectacle as the sun started to break through.

 L: Neckera complanata, R: Location shown by knife

 L: Schistidium crassipilum, R: Amblystegium serpens var. salinum

My route

The other Kenfig Drepanocladus species

Following on from the recent post of D. sendtneri at Kenfig, here are a couple of pics of the two commoner Drepanocladus species found there, both of which appear fairly frequently in the slack scrapes. Note the strongly falcate dry-ground form of aduncus is particularly prevalent, at least at this time of year.

D. polygamus

D. aduncus