Epipterygium tozeri

One to keep an eye open for on ditch/lane banks. This specimen was collected from the banks of a muddy ditch at Pilton Green where little else of any real note was recorded. Note the oval leaves, which are flat, have a thick border, narrow base and a strong costa that stops well short of the leaf tip. It's only the 5th time I've seen it in Gower, so may not be that frequent in the county.

Systems failure

I felt sorry for Barry when he found out that I'd already visited his Felindre target site last week, but not half so sorry as I felt for myself when I got home this evening and found that I'd already visited today's "blank" tetrad, 14 months ago :-(  As I have been tetrad-bashing in Carms since 2001 I have annotated my set of OS maps to show all the areas I've looked at over the years.  I had an hour spare this afternoon so headed to the closest apparently blank tetrad to Carmarthen: SN41B.  The lane at Upland Mansion produced just over 50 species, and a very quick stop at a chapel added Climacium on a grave, Rhytidiadelphus triquetrus and a few wall-top species.  I was chuffed to have got ca70 species for the square, but when I checked my coverage map I saw the tetrad total was actually already over 75: I had failed to annotate my OS map to indicate my visit to Pont Penyfedw in Sept 2013.

It wasn't all bad though, as 15+ of today's species were additions to the tetrad list, including Climacium, Dicranella rufescens, Pogonatum aloides, Eurhynchium pumilum (I thought of Roy) and Homalia.  The abundance of Epipterygium tozeri (below) on the ORS soil of the lane banks was really impressive, although it was so dew-laden even in the late afternoon that photography was tricky.

At least I've broken my blockage on bryo recording, following on from the BBSAtlas. I'll start lunch-break excursions now.