Brown moss confusion

An hour and half looking at Sphagnum on Cefn Bryn yesterday afternoon turned up no surprises on the bog-moss front, with squarrosum being the most interesting of the nine species noted (new for SS49) records indicating that this is a localised species on the Gower peninsula. Best of the incidentals were a few small patches of Lophozia incisa on streamside peat, plus a small basic flush with frequent Philonotis calcarea which held a confusing mix of brown mosses that I am still trying to fathom. There is definitely Sarmentypnum exannulatum and Scorpidium cossonii, but there is also either Palustriella falcata or Hamatocaulis vernicosus, or as I suspect both!  I’ll have a closer look again at my specimens when I get a chance, but here are a photos of a few shoots I looked at last night. The sward was heavily poached and there were no decent stands of anything, making an intriguing puzzle of poorly grown plants.

Here are some images of shoots what looked like, and keyed out, as vernicosus. Nice broad shoots, though the leaf bases were't especially red on any of the material I collected (just a small sample). None of the leaves had differentiated alar cells and most were obviously pleated when wet, though not as strongly as in falcata. Costa weak beyond mid-point, ending at around 2/3.

These last two images were from another sample at the same location, the leaves being more strongly pleated and with differentiated alar cells. Though I could not detect and small leafy outgrowths on the stem during a quick search, I'm suspecting this might be falcata - one for later...

Thoughts on any of the above welcome.

The non-bryological highlight was a lovely clump of Clavulinopsis fusiformis [thanks for the ID Sam] in U3 Agrostis curtisii grassland on the ridge of Cefn Bryn.

Puncheston Common

Following our weekend twitch to see the Green Heron in the garden pond of Simon Hart MP, we headed up to Goodwick to look for the Black Guillemots. On the way I managed to convince the gang that Puncheston Common would be a good place to stop and decant our flasks and have a 15-20 minute break, hopefully this giving me enough time to relocate one of Sam's Hamatocaulis vernicosus sites. We stopped by the Waldo Williams plaque and after wandering around for 10 minutes I finally found some healthy patches of Hamatocaulis in very soggy ground surrounding the willows shown centre-right in the above photo. Capsules were reasonably frequent in one patch, which may be of note given the text books all state capsules are rare. The richer orange hues and thicker stems made plants stand out in comparison to Sarmentypnum exannulatum, which was much more frequent at the site. Now it's on my radar, I'd love to find this in Gower.

 

An unexpected bonus was a small but healthy population of Sphagnum platyphyllum at the same locality (photos below), though with warnings of how denticulatum can appear almost identical I'd welcome comments on my id. The texts I have indicate the double layer of cortical cells rule out this potential confusion with denticulatum, plus all the other key characters fit perfectly. The centre of the colony had rather well grown material (the darker of the images below), which looked quite different to the straggly big-budded smaller shoots, but microscopically they were identical. If correct this would represent a westwards extension to the population.

Other species noted at this wonderfully rich site included Anagallis tenella, Breutelia chrysocoma, Calliergon cordifolium, Drosera rotundifolia, Leucobryum glaucum, Menyanthes trifoliata, Narthecium ossifragum, Pedicularis sylvatica, Plagiothecium denticulatum var. denticulatum, Sphagnum squarrosum, S. tenellum, S. teres, Straminergon stramineum, Viola palustris and Wahlenbergia hederacea. This richness contrasts strongly with a lot superficially similar, but much poorer sites in Gower, which makes me wonder how much of an impact burning has on bryophytes, especially given how regular burning is carried out on the commons these days. I wonder if the Pembroskeshire commons are burned less frequently, or is the oceanic effect a bigger factor?

One final note on Leucobryum, it's worth pointing out that the first leaf section I looked at initially made me believe that the plants on the common were juniperoideum and it's only as I was expecting glaucum that I double checked. I'm sure you all do anyway, but do make sure that you cut leaf sections from the basal part of the leaf only. Both images below are from he same L. glaucum plant.

One of the more productive 15 mins in the field I've spent looking at bryophytes, although it was backed up by an hour or so of microscope work!

BBS Radnorshire, days 4-5

I'm just back from an enjoyable two days at my first BBS meeting. Today's outing with group 2 in almost constant rain didn't produce any outstanding bryological highlights, but was uesful nonetheless in gaining familiarity with species I've seen little of previously. The co-called Burfa Bog (SO2761) turned out to be more of a mesotrophic mire with lots of alder (though it was lovely to see several good patches of Aulacomnium androgynum on the bases of some of the alders). The nearby Burfa Bank was typical acidic woodland though someone found Anthoceros on a trackway. A village stop at New Radnor after that produced a good range of urban species plus some Leucodon sciuroides found by Mark Pool on a huge ash tree.

Yesterday was better both weather-wise and bryologically. After some Porella cordaeana and Orthotrichum rivulare along the Afon Edw near Cregrina, we moved onto Glascwm Hill and ascended a gully which held Pohlia cruda, Cladipodiella fluitans and tonnes of Bartramia pomiformis and Amphidium mougeotii. Much time was spent searching flushes on the hilltop and eventually Sharon Pilkington found some Hamatocaulis vernicosus, growing near Sphagnum contortum and Palustriella falcata. There were also some impressive patches of Calliergon giganteum, probably my favourite new bryo from the trip.

Lunch at Glascwm Hill

Calliergon giganteum

Hamatocaulis vernicosus

Pohlia cruda

It probably worked out for the best that I missed the Stanner trip as I'm not sure I'd have been ready for the Grimmia-fest, but I look forward to Barry and Sam's report.

BBS in Radnorshire - day 1

I joined 4 other bryologists on Maelienydd Common (SO17) in northern Radnorshire on the first day of the spring meeting.  Two other, larger groups were out elsewhere in the county (SO08 and SO18).  We started with a circuit of the central part of the common, passing neutral to base-rich flushes with Scorpidium cossonii, Campylium, Ctenidium, Breutelia and Sphagna, soon reaching a pool edged with 10,000s of Hamatocaulis vernicosus.  Its inflow stream held intriguing submerged Calliergon giganteum.

yes, that's all Hamatocaulis!

Mark Lawley had visited the site once before and had found Barbilophozia kunzeana (a S42 liverwort) then.  He spotted today's first colony, followed a little while later by another patch found by Lucia and Emily, and rounded off by a patch that I spotted (I've only ever seen it once before, at Julian Woodman's site in SW VC35).  It was a reassuringly distinctive thing, with oddly pinched-looking leaf lobes and a couple of underleaves visible on most shoots.  The habitat of Sphagnum mounds in neutral mire seems pretty consistent, but it is always very localised on a site and is easily missed.  There was also some Scapania cf paludicola with very arched keels, but there's ongoing debate as to whether our Welsh plants are actually that or extreme S. irrigua.  A candidate for Jamesoniella undulifolia (which Mark has found at 3 or 4 sites alongside B. kunzeana) may well just be Odontoschisma.

After lunch we headed slightly further west on the common and worked our way up a slightly base-enriched gully with Trichostomum brachydontium, Gymnostomum aeruginosum and Amphidium mougeotii but sadly nothing more exciting.  The highlight there was Aulacomnium androgynum on a lane bank: a real rarity in Wales with very few records in the last 10+ years.  The list was rounded off with a bevy of Orthotrichum on a bridge and trees.

With a couple of hours left until "tea time" we disobeyed Mark Hill's orders to stay in SO17, which we knew another party were also recording in, and headed west into SO07.  We chose some forestry west of Abbeycwmhir, largely because it wasn't included on the programme for the official SO07 visit on Tuesday.  Almost as soon as we parked I spotted Colura new for Radnorshire on a willow (Radnorshire lacks Colura hunters of Charles and Hilary's calibre!).  Typical conifer plantation species such as Plagiothecium curvifolium (new), Polytrichum perigoniale (new), Pohlia annotina, Diplophyllum obtusifolium and Racomitrium ericoides followed.  All in all, it was a good start to the BBS week in Radnorshire, and I don't even know what the other groups found...