another little look at Cefn Bryn

I spent an hour and a half on Cefn Bryn in the rain on Saturday and recorded 53 species in an area of flushed ground to the north of Arthur's Stone.  Kurzia pauciflora was more frequent here than I've seen elsewhere on Gower, typically growing through mounds of Sphagnum papillosum. Amongst eight Sphagnum, tenellum was the only species of any note.

Kurzia pauciflora

I only came across one base-enriched flush, where there were small quantities of Palustriella falcata and Sarmentypnum exannulatum mixed in the short turf, which held frequent Campylium stellatum and Scorpidium cossonii.

Scorpidium cossonii

Grimmia trichophylla & Racomitrium heterostichum were present on several of the rocks in the area, surprisingly this being the first time the latter has been recorded on the Gower peninsula.

Racomitrium heterostichum

Racomitrium heterostichum

Racomitrium heterostichum mid-leaf section

Grimmia trichophylla

Hillend ORS

Today I finally checked a few specimens I brought back from a 1 hour visit to Hillend, at the northern end of Rhossili Down,on the 4th (the area searched shown above). There is a nice rocky ridge in this area, marking the geological boundary of the Brownstones formation and the Upper ORS. The Frullania on the rocks looked interesting and one of my samples had a mix of tamarisci, dilatata and microphylla var. microphylla, the latter new for the county. I'm pretty confident this is correct and whilst a barely detectable fragrance put a little doubt in my mind, everything else seems spot on. The flat leaves seem to be a good field feature. Occasional burgundy patches of Frullania were dotted around the rocks and whilst I'm not 100% sure which rock my sample came from, I suspect it was that shown in the above photo (approximately SS41939097). I'm sure further searches will reveal further patches with microphylla mixed in. Other species noted included some nice patches of Grimmia trichophylla, Pterogonium gracile and Scleropodium touretii.

G. trichophylla

coastal lichens were much more prominent than bryos.

rocks with Pterogonium, Isothecium myosuroides and Hypnum cupressiforme var. resupinatum

Cefn Bryn

Grimmia trichophylla low-right on rock

As it was a beautiful morning and the forecast is rubbish for the weekend, I took Alfie for a stroll over that part of Cefn Bryn within SS49V. The square already had 81 species logged, but I've always wanted to look in the small ORS quarry at SS49759012 along with the sparse scattering of rocks on the common in the hope of finding Hedwigia. During our perambulation I failed to find any Hedwigia, but did manage to take the square total to 99. The quarry had more Ptilidium ciliare above-left than I’ve seen anywhere else in Gower, but little else of note. Other species of interest on the open common included a single small colony of Grimmia trichophylla above-right (I’ll check my sample for lisae over the weekend), Pleuridium acuminatum below top-right, Microlejeuna ulicina growing though a small cushion of Cephaloziella divaricata below top-left on an ORS quartz conglomerate rock and Kurzia pauciflora bottom left & right (Bristly Fingerwort!) growing with Odontoschisma sphagni on Sphagnum papillosum. A brick bunker on the common added a good selection of wall calcicoles.