A walk in the woods

I was off work last Thursday - and where better to spend a warm early spring day than in limestone woodland. I spent half of the day walking the woods around Dinas Powys, with one of the aims being to improve on the miserly total of 31 bryo taxa recorded in ST17L. Around 60 taxa were recorded on the walk, with the solid if unspectacular cast including Riccardia chamaedrys, Orthodontium lineare, Dialytricha mucronata (on concrete by the Cadoxton River), Cirriphyllum crassinervium and Lejeunea lamacerina.  The highlight was an unexpected limestone crag at ST147723, which added Mnium stellare, Porella platyphylla, Eucladium verticillatum and Tortella tortuosa, among others.

Mnium stellare

In places it was hard to avoid treading on Herb Paris

Earlier in the day I called at the Cardiff Bay Wetland Reserve to try and add a few species for ST17X (which had a reasonable list of grots but hardly anything else). Around 10 taxa were added, taking the total for this tetrad into the 40s, including Fissidens incurvus, Orthotrichum lyellii and a nice fruiting patch of Bryum radiculosum on a wall.

Kenfig slacks

The slacks at Kenfig are remarkably dry for the time of year, in fact chatting to Dave Carrington, he said he couldn't remember conditions being so dry during January in all his time at the reserve. I joined him while he checked a few dip-wells which showed the water level was still 50-60cm below the surface. Despite the low water levels, there has clearly been enough humidity in the slacks to allow the pleurocarps to flourish and there were some lovely patches of well-grown Pseudocalliergon lycopodioides (above, top 3 and below, top 2 photos) and Drepanocladus sendtneri  (above, 4th and below 3rd photo) amongst the sea of Calliergonella cuspidata.

Under the adjacent scrub I was surprised to find Mnium stellare was locally frequent on several steep dune banks.

Mumbles car park revisited - and a lesson learned

Mnium stellare centre-slightly left showing up as a
pale greyish patch with twiggy bits sticking out

Just before getting back in the car after a welcome tea break at the Seaside Cafe by Mumbles Pier, I noticed a nice patch of what I thought was Mnium marginatum and I collected a small sample to double check at home. The main associate was M. stellare and what looked like scattered shoots of Amblystegium serpens, though under the microscope I was struck by the prominent dentate margins on many leaves and I was excited to read that Smith states dentate margins at the widest part of the leaf is the best way to separate Conardia compacta from A. serpens! Unfortunately there were no gemmae on the scrappy material in my small sample and the only rhizoids were arising from just below the leaf insertion point (none found on leaf backs, a Conardia feature). I'm suspecting this is probably just toothy A.s. rather than C.c. but any opinions welcome. I'll take a closer look next time we call in for a cuppa...

What I initially thought was Mnium marginatum, when later examined under the microscope, proved to be just the older shoots of M. stellare. The reddish shoots with elongate leaves and apparent borders (in fact just stained marginal cells) contrasted with the fresh pale green egg-shaped leaves of the new growth - lesson learned.

old M. stellare leaves with darkened marginal cells