Home squares

I have two home tetrads: one in VC35 and one in VC44.  Both are pretty ordinary but have the advantage of me being able to repeatedly poke around in all sorts of different habitats, picking up small populations of varied bryophyte species.  Actually, the Dingestow tetrad SO40P (half way between Raglan and Monmouth) is rather non-ordinary because it includes a large Victorian garden, lots of setaside and arable, and a wooded ridge with base-rich springs and planted conifers, but there are any number of equally diverse tetrads in eastern Monmouthshire.

Additions keep coming, both arriving de novo and just being discovered afresh.  Encalypta streptocarpa seems to be a newish arrival on an asbestos roof, whereas lumps of tufa in the garden produced Tortula marginata and Seligeria donniana of assumed long-standing this summer. 

The tetrad list for SO40P (Dingestow) now stands at 217 taxa, with highlights such as Acaulon muticum, Amblystegium humile, Anthoceros agrestis, Aulacomnium palustre, Bryum caespiticium, Chiloscyphus pallescens, Colura calyptrifolia, Drepanocladus polygamus, Ephemerum sessile, Eurhynchium schleicheri, Hennediella stanfordensis, Leiocolea turbinata, Leucodon sciuroides, Orthotrichum pallens, Phaeoceros carolinianus, Platygyrium repens, Pylaisia polyantha, 3 spp of Racomitrium, Sematophyllum substrumulosum, Syntrichia virescens, Weissia longifolia, W. multicapsularis and W. rutilans.

The Cnwc y Llwyn tetrad (SN53A) is lagging behind a bit at 181 taxa.

The big question is how we can expect to get genuine complete tetrad coverage in any county, when a good day out in a tetrad in either SN53 or SO40 would produce 80 to 100 species, the true scores are more than double that, and there is little or no chance of repeated visits to anywhere other than our 'home' squares.

Dim Splachnum o gwbl

I spent about 50 minutes looking at nothing but horse and cattle dung on the Gelli-Organ section of Mynydd Carn-goch today SS6099. There was lots of poo in various states of decay and in a range of wet and dry situations, but none with anything other than the odd bit of Kindbergia sprawling over it or Polytrichum poking up through it. Hopefully the Gower commons prove more productive.

Cwm Clydach (Brecs)

A couple of pics from a site visit to Brynmawr Sections SSSI last week:

Hygrohypnum luridum on concrete retainer

Scapania compacta on thin soil over sandstone

Mewslade

During a quiet 15 minutes whilst bird-ringing in Mewslade Valley yesterday I looked at some cliff turf by one of my nets. Encalypta vulgaris with newly emerging capsules proved to be locally frequent in the short turf along with associates such as Aphanes sp., Polytrichum juniperinum, Pseudocrossidium hornschuchianum, Riccia sorocarpa and Trichstomum brachydontium. Whilst this is not a new site for the E. vulgaris, it is an extension to the colony on one of the outcrops I’d looked at last winter and previous observations suggest it is probably scattered throughout the valley wherever there is suitable habitat.

Also growing here was this little Tortula with unripe capsules making id a little problematic. I think it’s a tossup between modica and viridifolia and I’m inclined to go for the latter as some of the hair-points were >500 µm, although the leaves aren't as rounded as depicted in Smith. Other features noted included no apparent peristome (dissected), smooth cells, recurved leaf margins.  Any thoughts on this welcome?

Daranlas. ST0498

Exploring the hillside to the west of Mountain Ash, last Sunday, I came upon an old weathered outcrop of Pennant Sandstone and on investigating the deep clefts in them thought I could see a tiny patch of Schistostega pennata on a small area of bare soil amongst the other bryophytes present.

The original cleft, at Daranlas

The cleft, with the tiny patch of S, pennata arrowed. It looks wide
enough to walk into, but I could only just get my head in there.

I attempted some photos, but with little success and as the light was fading by then and I wanted to get down off there before dark, I had to leave it at that.
This afternoon, I returned to the site and after fruitlessly trying to photograph it again, by pushing my camera inside the cleft and firing the shutter remotely, I looked around for a more accessible colony and found it in an even narrower (50mm) cleft, but closer to the entrance, so I was able to get this shot.

It really is a startlingly beautiful sight, when on shining a torch
into a dark cleft in the rock, part of it lights up, luminous golden
green.

New river, new moss

After numerous riverbank surveys I'd more or less given up hope of finding Orthotrichum rivulare or sprucei on the Taff in Cardiff, so decided to make my first foray to the River Ely, at St Fagans, on my lunch break today. There, on the first alder I looked at, was O. sprucei! At least, I think it is sprucei rather than rivulare - small plants (mostly < 1cm tall) forming carpets and with large leaf cells - but if anyone disagrees based on the photos below please let me know.

Host Alder

Rubbish field photo but shows the low carpets of O. sprucei

I don't have the apparatus to measure the leaf cells, so can I be 100% sure it's not rivulare?

I only searched two alders - the second didn't have any sprucei, but between them they supported at least 16 epiphytes including abundant Leskea polycarpa and small amounts of Brachythecium plumosum, Cinclidotus fontinaloides and Homalia trichomanoides.

Riparian bryos again

Like Barry I've had few opportunities to get out mossing during the last week, but yesterday lunchtime I managed some time in the sunshine and continued working my way north along the Taff Riverbank in Cardiff. This time I was in ST1381, just south of where the Taff passes under the M4, not far from Coryton roundabout. This only leaves one more monad to the north before the riverbank becomes inaccessible - which will mean I can turn my attention elsewhere.

A good range of riverbank species was recorded, but included nothing remarkable...the most interesting species I suppose being Cirriphyllum crassinervium - again growing on the base of a Sycamore in the flood zone, just like the other site at which I've seen it further downstream. The same Sycamore supported a very small tuft of Orthotrichum lyellii just above the high water mark.

Also a troublesome Schistidium on a Poplar trunk, which I'll try and get some photos of tomorrow.

On the way back to the car, I spotted a large pleurocarp growing on a soil bank by the Taff Trail, and was relieved to confirm when I got home that it was as suspected Cirriphyllum piliferum. This has been my 'bogey moss' for a while, and I couldn't understand why I hadn't spotted such a large moss previously. But on checking MapMate I see Barry, Hilary and Charles have only recorded it in about 10 tetrads across NPT and Swansea, so perhaps it is not especially common in Glamorgan.