Ton-up

Actually more like ton-down: I have fewer than 100 tetrads left unsurveyed for bryophytes in Monmouthshire (VC35)!  Bea had a birthday party just across the border yesterday, so I had nearly 4 hours to record 1.5 tetrads in the White Castle area.  Both were good examples of typical NE Monmouthshire - lovely rolling landscape with deep-cut streams and lane banks exposing neutral Old Red Sandstone.  Highlights among the 77 species recorded in SO31Y (Upper Cwm lanes) were (+indicates photo): +Eurhynchium schleicheri (abundant on one lane bank), +Plagiothecium curvifolium (fruiting on a large tree-stump), +Pylaisia polyantha (one large patch on a fallen canopy Ash branch), Platygyrium repens (a few patches on roadside Clematis), Rhynchostegiella teneriffae (frequent on ORS rocks in a stream gully) and Mnium stellare (large patches on stream bank), as well as the full suite of regular epiphytic Orthotrichum and some wall, track and tarmac 'grots'. 

I made a start on SO31Z in 2007 (Bont), so topped up that lanes list with a visit to a locality where a footpath crossed a deep-cut stream (Red Castle cwm), taking the tetrad total up to 79 spp.  Yesterday's highlights included +Plagiochila porelloides & +Scleropodium cespitans sharing sandstone outcrops, Rhynchostegiella teneriffae in the stream, and Mnium stellare on the stream bank.  It's really good to know what the background bryophyte flora of this part of the county is like.

Dyffryn Gardens revisited

Some casual recording at the gardens last weekend produced the most convincing Glamorgan Oxyrrhinchium schleicheri I have seen to date. Although many leaves lacked the twisted leaf tips, plenty had them, but more importantly the main stems were growing horizontally through the soil, the plants had a very bushy habit but cell measurements sealed the deal. The species was scattered above the rockery hillock in the background of the above photo.

East of Skenfrith

The River Monnow forms the border between England and Wales for several miles, but at Skenfrith there is a small section of the river's east bank in VC35 - most of which is in tetrad SO42Q.  A stop in this eastern outlier last week produced very little of note on a roadside, so this morning I made another visit to the tetrad - on a lane at St Fraed's.  Highlight was abundant Eurhynchium schleicheri, including one patch with sporophytes (I've only seen it fruiting twice previously).  Also of local interest were Porella platyphylla and Mnium stellare.  There's still the Monnow itself to do, with access along a riverside footpath, so this far-eastern Welsh tetrad should scrape above 75 in the end.

Eurhynchium schleicheri has characteristically crowded upright branches;

this patch looks squashed because I had to take it home for a photo (I forgot my camera again).

One of the underground stolons typical of E. schleicheri.