Thanks to the gulls

I was in Bangor earlier this week for Butterfly Conservation's annual grant meeting with NRW. I always try and get up early enough to have a morning stroll before the meeting. This proved worthwhile last year, with Schistidium elegantulum new for VC49 on a wall near our hotel, but this year there was something much better...

I was woken well before my alarm by noisy gulls on the roof, and so my walk took me a bit further out of town than usual. I headed west through the narrow band of oak woodland at the top of the foreshore, above the Menai Strait. There was a fair diversity of bryos in an inviting looking crevice in the rocks, kept damp by overhanging oak boughs. A few samples were grabbed, and on checking these at home yesterday evening I was delighted and more than a little surprised to find Cephaloziella turneri among them.

Des Callaghan found this nationally rare liverwort in a gorge in Meirionydd in 2015 - the first North Wales record in nearly a century. My find was in surroundings more like the creek bank sites in Pembrokeshire, with associates being Mnium hornum, Diplophyllum albicans, Lejeunea lamacerina and Saccogyna viticulosa. My sample contained a single perianth.

For once, I was grateful to the noisy gulls.

Llyn Eiddwen

More news from distant West Wales.  Llyn Eiddwen is a NNR up in central Ceredigion, it has extensive mires on two sides which are owned by WTSWW and there are some quite choice bryophytes there.

I went in hope of refinding Sam's record of Pseudobryum cinclidioides but soon realised that it was unlikely to be above water since the lake was at least 1 or 2 feet higher than normal and much of the mire at the outflow end of the lake was submerged.  Still it was more than made up by finding numerous colonies of Scapania paludicola.


This distinctive species (did I just write that about a Scapania?) was growing on the tops of many of the Sphagnum hummocks scattered across the mire.  The keel is strongly arcuate but otherwise it is probably closest to S. irrigua although larger than many forms of that variable species.
Also of note were two patches of Cephalozia pleniceps, a rare species in Ceredigion, a hyper-abundance of Straminergon stramineum and a fine patch of Hamatocaulis vernicosus.  The mire is decidedly base enriched, at least in part, but I couldn't see any S. contortum or even Campylium stellatum although Sam had recorded the latter.  A nice patch of Riccardia palmata was a fairly good find for the county too but I was probably most pleased with some scraps of Cladopodiella francisci on a peaty bank at the edge of the mire as I had guessed it would be there if a scraping of liverworts from a vertical bank were examined but only a couple of shoots were present amongst a mat of Ceph bicusp and it would have needed a miracle to have spotted them in the field.

The site now has 144 species and there will undoubtedly be more to come.

Campyliadelphus elodes at Kenfig

I came across what looks a good candidate for Campyliadelphus elodes at Kenfig on Thursday, with several scattered patches noted growing in a mature, unmanaged SD15a slack at SS79408067.  Plants formed wefts growing through dead leaves of Molinia and Carex nigra. Any comments on the id based on my photos welcome. For ref the key characters are the small size, strong costa running into a very long tapering leaf tip, finely denticulate leaf margins, stem leaves similar to branch leaves and lacking tiny leaf-like structures on the stem. Although not listed for Glamorgan, there is an unconfirmed record made by Sue Westwood and Julian Woodman at Brynwith Crossing SS954840 on 22 July 1993, with a comment tagged to the record stating '...needs checking SDSB', but I don't know if Sam ever got to see a voucher for this?

Also Physcia leptalea was noted on a nearby Hawthorn

Afon Alun

A visit to Coed-y-bwl to enjoy the Daffodil display provided an opportunity for a little bit of bryologising in this well recorded tetrad. I never saw anything of special note, though it was only the second time I've encountered fruiting Dialytrichia mucronata, which was well-established on Pont Brown. The lane walls were covered in mosses - mostly Thamnobryum alopecurum and Anomodon viticulosus - and a riverside Field Maple was heavily draped with mosses including Neckera pumila. A really lovely mossy site.

Cwm Colliery

Yesterday afternoon Karen Wilkinson and I spent a few hours looking at the bryophytes of Cwm Colliery, near Beddau. It's a big place and we only really scratched the surface, but we managed to add quite a few species for the under-recorded tetrads ST08S and ST08T.

Liam Olds has done a lot of invert surveys at this site, and had mentioned the presence of tufaceous springs - something I'd not seen on colliery spoil. We looked at a couple of these on the western side of the tip - they certainly look odd but we failed to find any unusual bryophyte species: only Didymodon tophaceus, Aneura pinguis, Cratoneuron filicinum and Bryum pseudotriquetrum were recorded on the tufa.

 

Elsewhere, we found a couple of patches of what looks like it might be Lophocolea semiteres growing on spoil under young birch - photos below. I'm not absolutely sure it's not L. heterophylla - some of the leaf tips are retuse but most are entire, and none are very notched. Photos below.

Most of the spoil was fairly species-poor but we did find small patches of Calliergonella lindbergii (photo below), Archidium alternifolium, Campyliadelphus chrysophyllus and Weissia brachycarpa var obliqua. The young willow and birch woodland was quite rich, with Rhytidiadelphus triquetrus and a good range of epiphytes.

There are large areas in the north and east of the site left to explore, so further visits are needed.

Grimmia orbicularis

Today's photograph of my samples from Coedffaldau, which clearly show the differences between Grimmia orbicularis and G. pulvinata. Below, from the same day, Lophozia bicrenata growing in an extensive mat of hepatics at Bryn-melyn sandstone quarry (SN73781134), the main associates being Solenostoma gracillimum, Diplophyllum albicans and Nardia scalaris. The distinctive leather / cedar-wood smell of my sample is remarkably strong for such a small plant, even when dry. This character, when coupled with the compact shoots with golden-brown gemmae, make field identification straight forward.

Pohlia query

I struggle with Pohlia. This one was growing under bracken at Mynydd Rudry a few weeks ago. Using Smith it keys out as Pohlia wahlenbergii due to the relatively wide (17 microns) and short (60-100 microns) leaf cells. The habitat is plausible but the colour is all wrong, with the leaves being a fairly dull green, very different from the typical pale green of wahlenbergii. I found annotina elsewhere at the site, but I can't find any sign of bulbils on this sample. The tallest stems are a little over 1cm, and the leaves about 2mm long. Help please!