Radyr Quarry

I only became aware of the existence of Radyr Quarry thanks to to three bryophyte records made by A.E.Wade in 1950. Despite being close to home the quarry is completely hidden in trees and scrub, and doesn't stand out on my Explorer OS Map. After a bit of online research I discovered it was quarried for Radyr Stone from the 1800s until around 1920, after which it was used as a refuse tip.

Yesterday lunchtime I visited the southern end of the quarry (ST139794) and was pleasantly surprised by the diversity of bryophytes on the very shady rock faces. Radyr Stone is a breccia, comprising Triassic red sandstone with embedded fragments of Carboniferous Limestone. Given this one would  expect the flora to be calcicolous, and this proved to be the case. A single large tufaceous patch was covered in Eucladium verticillatum (photo below).

Not far away there were several patches of Leiocolea turbinata on soil-capped ledges (photo below), a new species for me. I think both this species and the Eucladium are new for ST17.

The quarry extends a fair way to the north, where it can be accessed via a LNR in Radyr (probably easier than the scramble through brambles at the southern end). I'll certainly check out the rest of it at some stage.

Incidentally, the three species Wade recorded were Riccardia chamedryfolia, Tortula modica and Microbryum davallianum. There is probably no suitable habitat remaining for the latter two species, which shows how much the quarry has changed in the last 65 years.

Tor Clawdd (north)

The highlights of a brief sojourn into SN60T (which before today's efforts had 25 species logged) were Pohlia drummondii, Cladopodiella fluitans (amongst Sphagnum in the bog in the above photo) and Marsupella emarginata var. aquatica (on rocks in the stream below the bog, growing alongside Scapania undulata and Racomitrium aciculare), the latter being the first county site away from Craig-y-Llyn.

The P. drummondii is pretty convincing with single axillary, large (mostly 600-700 μm) reddish-brown bulbils with leaf primordia well down the bulbils. The grab shots above give a general impression. There were good numbers of plants in several clusters, each extending 10-30cm. The location was behind the boulders shown below on gravelly ground. If confirmed, this will be just the second vc41 record since Sam recorded it at Abercanaid in 2003.

Alun Valley

I had some time to kill before a site meeting in the Alun Valley yesterday, and for once it wasn't raining - perfect conditions for a bit of mossing in fact. Sam mentioned in his recent Anomodon post that the river by Old Castle Down is base rich and should be very interesting. In fact the water levels were a bit high to find any of the lower flood zone species, but the limestone stepping stones by the ford (SS908756) were carpeted in a mix of Cinclidotus fontinaloides and Dialytrichia mucronata, with a little bit of Porella platyphylla too.

Anomodon was everywhere - on walls, limestone outcrops and tree trunks both by the river and away from it. The river sometimes dries up in the summer  - it would be fascinating to walk the dry riverbed and sample some of the usually inaccessible tree trunks and boughs.

Anomodon viticulosus carpeting a riverside tree

Part of the reason for the recording session was to try and catch up with Marchesinia mackaii, which has eluded me on the limestones of the north Cardiff ridgeway. Sam discovered it at Craig Ddu in 2013 and it proved to be widespread over a fair stretch of wooded limestone crag (SS908754).

This tetrad (SS97C) should be fantastically rich for bryos - the 69 species shown on Barry's latest map reflects the limited recording done to date. I added around 10 species yesterday, the best of which were Neckera pumila on a hazel by the river and Scapania aspera on shaded limestone (SS907756). The Scapania was recorded in this hectad back in the 1970s by Roy Perry, so it's good to get a specific grid ref for it.


I also had a brief look at an unploughed arable margin on Ewenny Down. Riccia glauca was frequent and, as always with arable, I have several specimens which need closer inspection.

Sea Bryum (Warne's Thread-moss) at Whiteford

An old dehised capsule of Bryum warneum amongst fresh ripening capsules of Didymodon tophaceus capsules at Whiteford on 26th November. 10+ fruiting plants (all old and dehised) were noted at SS4340894279 (an additional centisquare to those identified by David Holyoak - checked under microscope). The main direct associates were Pel.end., Dre.adu., Poh.wah., Ana.ten., Ane.pin., Cra.fil., Cam.ste., Sam.val., Did.top. & Bry.pse.

Source of the Llan

... well actually, 400m downstream from it, where I managed to squeeze in a quick smash and grab session in failing light (15:45-16:15). Although the water course and its banks seemed to support a rather limited bryo-flora, there were a couple of species of interest: Warnstorfia fluitans (locally frequent on the grassy flood zone alongside the stream) and Atrichum crispum, the latter conveniently growing adjacent to A. undulatum. Like the Warnstorfia it was mostly under water following the recent rains, hence no field shots. The species has a very different look to undulatum, with the shoots being more lax and a much brighter green. The photo below shows the narrowed leaf base and broad leaf shape. The ridges on the costa are smaller than those of undulatum, which you can get an impression of through a lens (just visible in photo above - you may need to zoom in a bit), which rules out any confusion with Mnium. This was only the third Glamorgan tetrad record, but given the rather mundane habitat, it's one we might expect to see more of in upland streams.

Warnstorfia fluitans with what looks like rather large alar cells, but the habitat, habit (dense sprawling mat) and presence of rhizoids on the leaf tips (with algae entangled) all make a safe id. Note the denticulate margins rule out Drepanocladus. 

A puzzle

I picked up a sample of Campylopus from humus under conifers near Ystradgynlais last week. In the sample were two tiny plants which were unfamiliar - I don't have photos of the whole plant but the leaf below looks distinctive enough, I just can't work out what it is. At first I thought it might be an Entosthodon but the cells are too small. I considered Tortula, but do any of them have such strongly  toothed leaves? I'm sure I'm just missing something obvious. Any suggestions welcome, thanks.

The leaf below is just under 2mm long. Mid leaf cells approx. 15-20 microns diameter. Associates were C. pyriformis and Calypogeia fissa.

Search for Scorpidium: can you help?

After the petrifying springs work for Sam the other year (Farr et al., 2014 & Graham & Farr, 2015) we had some useful feedback from Lars Hedenas regarding the chemical rages of the Scorpidium species that we had reported. In our study we had simply looked at the general quality of the water flushing the site, and we had not sampled individual stands of moss.  He pointed us to a paper he co-authored in the early 1990s (Kooijman & Hedenas, 1991). The paper shows that the three Scorpidium species have slightly different chemical preferences with S. revolvens in the lower pH and conductivity range and S. cossonii and S.scorpioides. S. revolvens was also found in more Ca poor water.

With this in mind myself and the unstoppable Jonathan Graham set off to collect water samples from species specific stands of the three Scorpidium species in south Wales. BGS has kindly offered to support the chemical sampling for this project. We wanted to see if our results would mimic the Sweedish data of (Kooijman & Hedenas, 1991) or not.

One of Jon's great site sketches of a calcareous flush at Foel Farwr

Jon Graham at Foel Fawr (Herberts Quarry)

Measuring pH, electrical conductivity and temperature in situ

We had chosen what we thought were enough sites with each of the Scorpidium species however on closer inspection (and ID by Lars Himself!) we found out that some of our S.revolvens were sadly not S.revolvens !!  So true to form when the chemical results came back from the lab we had a very tantalising story but NOT ENOUGH SAMPLES OF S.REVOLVENS.

Myself and Jon are heading out in January to complete our work (I should add self funded and in our own time !) we are so close to having a great species specific chemical data set for the Scorpidium species in Wales, however we are desperately in need of sites in South Wales with S.revolvens and or S.scorpiodies.

Sam has provided a list of sites from the database, but I think me and Jon may need either 10 Figure grid references or a kind knowledgeable local guide? It is sort of do or die as the funding for the sample analysis will disappear after Jan.

CAN YOU HELP????

(will be two days max in Jan 2016).

• Farr, G.; Graham, J.; Stratford, C. 2014 Survey, characterisation and condition assessment of Palustriella dominated springs 'H7220 petrifying springs with tufa formation (Cratoneurion) in Wales. NERC, 211pp. (Natural Resources Wales Evidence Report No. 136, WL/NEC03832/13_14/T6, OR/14/043) (Unpublished) http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/512109/
• Graham, Jonathan; Farr, Gareth. 2014 Petrifying springs in Wales. Field Bryology (112). 19-29. http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/508972/
• Kooijman & Hedenas, 1991. Differentiation in the habitat requirements within the genus Scopridium, especially between S.revolvens and S.cossonii.  Journal of Bryology, 16 pp 619-627.