Stanner shines in rainy Radnorshire

Grimmia decipiens under scrutiny

On Monday Sam led a BBS group around Stanner Rocks showing us a succession of rare Grimmia species and much more besides. Whilst the weather was not ideal for looking at the critical characters of this tricky genus, the liverworts were at their best and together with vascular plants, highlights came thick and fast and included Bartramia stricta, Frullania fragilifolia, Gagea bohemica, Grimmia decipiens, G. laevigata, G. lisae, G. longirostris (poss?), G. ovalis, Riccia beyrichiana, R. nigrella, R. subbifurca, Schistidium pruinosum, Sedum forsterianum, Silene viscaria, Targionia hypophylla, Teesdalia nudicaulis & Veronica spicata. Phew!

Above:

G. decipiens - G. lisae

G. longirostris - G. ovalis

Schistidium pruinosum

Below:

Bartramia stricta - Frullania fragilifolia

R. nigrella - Silene viscaria

Sedum forsterianum

a rather nice little community with Bartramia stricta, Sedum forsterianum, Silene viscaria, Targionia hypophylla, & Veronica spicata.

rain-soaked Rory taking an end of session record shot of rain-soaked Stanner

At the zoo

"Someone told me it's all happening at the zoo.  I do believe it, I do believe it's true"

A visit to Bristol Zoo with Bea and Johnny gave me the chance to check on the Antitrichia patch that I found several years ago on a Paulownia tree by the Prairie Dog enclosure.  The Prairie Dogs have been replaced by a Pudu, but the tree is still there and so is a scrappy patch of Antitrichia.

I looked at the Zoo's bryophytes in reasonable detail with Richard Lansdown (whilst our then toddling daughters kept themselves entertained) a few months after spotting the Antitrichia, so I didn't do any other recording today.  However, I noticed a patch of pale moss on top of a Tree-fern and thought that might be worth a look.  Sure enough, it was Leptotheca gaudichaudii - one of the more regular Tree-fern aliens in Britain and Ireland.  I haven't noticed this moss or the Tree-ferns at the Zoo before, but I think it's an area I've bypassed before.

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.

Swansea Copper Quarter

this looks very much like the quay area we looked at today (looks rather different now!)
there are some remarkable photos on line showing how this area once looked - search 'Copperopolis'

Sam and myself carried out a unsuccessful search for Scopelophila cataractae at a selection of sites with some of the last metalliferous spoil remnants of the Copperopolis legacy. My optimism for rediscovering the species in Swansea has been dampened a little after today's blank, but there are still pockets of land where the species might be found, so the challenge continues...

Despite the apparent absence of Scopelophila, important metalliferous bryophyte and lichen communities are still present in Swansea, but these are under pressure from  natural succession as-well-as ongoing redevelopment of the Copper Quarter. Thankfully steps are being made to safeguard the best examples of these remnants.

One plus from today was learning a new species, with the discovery of a strong population of Bryoerythrophyllum ferruginascens. Once the key characters were demonstrated to me by Sam, it immediately appeared so distinctive it was recognisable even at distance and we noted it in two tetrads. The dark red older leaves, with contrasting bright yellowy-green shoot tips create a distinctive hue on barren ground. This is one I suspect we will start seeing more frequently locally. First recorded by A.J.E. Smith at Craig-y-Llyn in 1961 and more recently Sharon Pilkington found it on the cliffs at Pennard, so it seems likely it can be found on suitable ground anywhere in the county.

B. ferruginascens showing up as
yellowy-speckled dark-bronze patches

location of photo above shown

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...

Graig Fawr, RCT

Graig Fawr

Yesterday afternoon, H and I did our weekly square-bashing trip to RCT. We decided to have a look at Graig Fawr, an imposing cirque that overlooks Treorchy in Rhondda Cynon Taff. Old vascular plant records, which list Beech Fern, Oak Fern, Parsley Fern and Wilson's Filmy-fern, suggest that, like Craig y Llyn, it is a refuge for Boreal-montane species. Setting out from a very convenient lay-by on the A4061, we took a track that runs below Graig Fach. A large clump of Neckera crispa draped over a concrete culvert was a good start.

Neckera crispa on concrete culvert below Graig Fach

Access to ledges on Graig Fach and Graig Fawr is difficult and it will take quite an effort to survey this site properly. On the day we took some easier options, firstly checking the lower scree and then climbing into an inviting gully. Below the gully, scree was covered in the usual Racomitriums (aquaticum, ericoides, fasciculare, heterostichum, lanuginosum) and Andrea rothii ssp. falcata, but the gully itself looked more promising.

Gully bisecting the southern edge of Graig Fawr

We noticed a small amount of Hymenophyllum wilsonii on the north-facing wall of the gully and a large population of Huperzia selago, with some individuals as big as dinner plates. These must be of significant age (many decades) and the fact that H. selago is not listed in old records suggests that this gully may not have been visited by many botanists for a long time.

Huperzia selago in gully

This was also suggested by some of the relatively common bryophytes we recorded there which were not in the MM database for this tetrad (SS99H); e.g. Amphidium mougeotii, Batramia pomiformis, Campylopus atrovirens, Hookeria lucens, Hyocomium armoricum, Marsupella emarginata var. aquatica, Palustriella commutata, Plagiothecium denticulatum, Riccardia multifida.

 Marsupella emarginata var. aquatica in gully stream

It was very cold in the gully and persistent hailstones didn't help to maintain our enthusiasm. But towards the top of the gully in the vicinity of SS92709562, in a dim, humid overhang, we found a Rhabdoweisia sp.

 Rhabdoweisia crenulata in humid overhang, Graig Fawr (RCT)

It's good to have Barry's recent photos of R. crispata (Tan-y-Graig) for comparison. The Graig Fawr Rhabdoweisia differs from the Tan-y-Graig plants in a number of ways. Firstly they have larger leaf cells (16-24 microns). Secondly, the mature leaves are relatively broad (usually > 10 cells wide either side of the costa). Thirdly the upper leaf margin has noticeable, large, protruding (often multicellular) teeth.

 Wide leaf tip of Graig Fawr Rhabdoweisia crenulata showing prominent teeth

Multicellular teeth of Graig Fawr Rhabdoweisia crenulata

This looks like Rabdoweisia crenulata (Greater Streak-moss) to me, which was recoded once before in VC41 by Tony Smith (Craig y Llyn in 1961). As always, comments and corrections will be appreciated.

Exploring RCT is time consuming and requires a fair amount of effort, but the rewards are obvious. There's lots of crags and cirques and a substantial amount of conifer forest. Goodness only knows what is lurking on some of those ledges! Our records yesterday bring the total for SS99H up to 75.

Anomodon again

At lunch today I took a quick walk along the lane to Llanwenarth church just west of Abergavenny. Following Charles' recent mention of Anomodon I recalled that a couple of patches grow on the roadside wall in front of the church.  It is a south-facing wall only lightly shaded by a tall-ish hedge on the opposite side of the road, but with some of the wall being built into a bank, the stones in the wall presumably soak up enough moisture from the soil to allow the Anomodon to grow.   A closer look revealed that as well as the two small patches growing on the wall itself, another patch grows on a sandstone boulder embeded in an earth bank with it also spreading onto an adjacent rotting log.   Peering deeper into the hedge also revealed two very separate patches growing at the base of a couple of hawthorn bushes - I can't recall if I have seen Anomodon growing on hawthorn before.