Abietinella at Pendine

My first visit to Pendine Burrows since 2014 was an official NRW meeting to advise on Petalophyllum hydrology, informed by some excellent mapping (leaving obvious marked pegs) by Matt Sutton last autumn. I was particularly pleased to spot Abietinella abietina in three places alongside petalwort as I had only seen it in two localities in the Burrows during my 2014 survey. It appears to favour areas of short-mown turf that has developed on a mix of limestone chippings and blown sand. This is the only remaining site for this rare species in Carmarthenshire and one of very few in Wales.

I should really be posting this on the new West Wales Bryophytes, but despite Matt sending me an invitation to Blog there I can't find a New Post option. Matt (Pembs) and Tom (Ceredigion) are currently very active bryologically in their counties, in contrast to us in south-east Wales, so it's well worth a regular look.

Caerau Road Cutting ST135748

Every time I head into Cardiff on the western access road I tell myself, one day I must stop and look at the road cutting flora. The sparse vascular plant cover and abundant bryophytes on the eroding banks always looks promising. Yesterday I was nearby with a spare couple of hours, so I parked in Caerau and climbed over the fence.

For ref the BGS website shows the geology to be a combination of Blue Anchor Formation and Mercia Mudstone Group, these Triassic deposits exposed by the A4232 cutting. The lack of any top dressing has allowed an interesting assemblage of 26+ terricolous species to colonise. Hypnum cupressiforme var. lacunosum, Ctenidium molluscum (only on the S.E. side of the road) Fissidens adianthoides and Trichostomum crispulum were all abundant, with other frequent species noted including Aloina aloides, Dicranella varia, Didymodon acutus, Didymodon ferrugineus and Homalothecium lutescens.

Didymodon acutus

Didymodon ferrugineus

Didymodon ferrugineus

The central reservation and verge 'dirt zone' held locally abundant Didymodon australasiae and occasional Weissia controversa var. densifolia was noted under the crash barriers.

Didymodon australasiae

Lovely Jubbly

This season I'm hoping to focus on the Glamorgan part of Caerphilly county, much of which has received little attention in the past (though it looks promising). Today I had a drizzly outing to the woods west of Llanbradach. After a couple of hours I'd seen most of the usual woodland suspects and generally had an enjoyable time despite the drizzle, but had seen nothing out of the ordinary and was on the point of turning back with the school run looming. So imagine my surprise when I came across a small stream in a not especially humid east-facing location which had several good sized patches of Jubula hutchinsiae. It was growing on rocks over a reasonable length of streamside habitat at ST145898.

This is the 7th Glamorgan tetrad and the most easterly to date, and only 500m from the VC35 border. I remember Sam saying in the past that there were no VC35 records from the west of the county - is that still the case?

After finding the Jubula, I scrambled up and down the stream for a little while and found some Heterocladium heteropterum var. heteropterum and a couple of nice patches of Hookeria lucens.

Sphagnum Medium - A first for VC41

In July of 2020 I was fortunate enough to stumble (quite literally!) onto a hummock of Sphagnum medium within the Eastern area of the Pen-y-Cymoedd wind farm on Mynydd Ystradffernol. The area in which it was found is far from what anyone would be able to describe as optimal for bog vegetation. It exists on an area in between extensive spruce coupes and Molinia dominated wet modified bog with large amounts of associated drainage, although the hummock I found sits along the edge of a more natural looking erosion feature with a higher Calluna presence. The peat itself is around 0.6m in depth around the location, which is less that I originally expected, grading into over 2m deep within 100m.

General habitat surrounding Sphagnum hummock

A return visit on the 31^st to search for any further species of interest didn’t yield any more results for Sphagnum medium but there are some impressive hummocks containing a variety of species (including but I’m sure not limited to capillifolium var. capillifolium, palustre, papilosum, subnitens and fimbriatum)  within 50 or so metres, although broadly speaking these are all restricted to the lower areas within the ridge/furrow microtopography.

A fairly majestic hummock to the south west

I’ve been searching for some of the former Sphagnum magellanicum species (medium and divinum) for the better part of 8 months (fuelled by jealousy over what I’d seen on Cors Fochno last summer).  However, before this, efforts had been fruitless, despite having now walked over extensive areas of the Afan and Rhondda Fawr Uplands. What it is about this particular location versus the others in the uplands of NPT and RCT that I’ve been to that makes it more suitable for the species I’m not sure, but after sending off a voucher to the BBS and receiving confirmation of the species and it being the first record for VC41 I will be returning to scope out the wider area and see what else is hiding there.

Sphagnum medium on Ystradffernol

The story of the finding of this species often seems to be more enjoyable for people I tell than the actual finding. For those of you with glasses like myself, you’ll understand the dilemma presented by consistent heavy rain, it is a choice between not seeing because of the water on the lens or not seeing because you have to take your glasses off. Cue the heavy rain as soon as I get to the area, after pushing through sitka and finally reaching some clearer air I took my glasses off, made it about 10 steps before tripping and falling over. Three inches from the end of my nose was what I’d been searching for 8 months, no doubt without the fall I wouldn’t have found it as it was off my route.

So there we have it, an 8 month goal realised and a lovely record for VC41. Thank you for the invitation to write here and may all your stumbles be so fortunate.

An extreme close up of Sphagnum medium voucher courtesy of Barry Stewart 

Before the lockdown - some nice surprises in my home hectad

The relatively care-free days of social distancing (but no lockdown) seem a long while ago already, but as I write it's only been 10 days. On Sunday 22nd March, sensing what might be coming, I took a trip to Cwm Cydfin near Leckwith - a tricky to access wooded stream valley that runs down into the River Ely. This short valley straddles three different tetrads so the GPS needed to be regularly checked to be sure which square I was in at any particular point.

After a bit of scrambling over fallen trees I came to a nice soft cliff section. The whole valley is calcareous so it was no surprise to find Fissidens incurvus, Eucladium verticillatum and Riccardia chamaedryfolia here, in fact the latter species was surprisingly frequent down the entire length of the stream. More of a surprise was Rhynchostegiella teneriffae, new for my home hectad ST17.

A little further downstream, a very rotten oak log that bridged the stream supported plenty of Tetraphis pellucica and a few patches of Nowellia curvifolia - also new for ST17.

The five south-easternmost records on the map above were all made by me in the last four years, suggesting this species is spreading into the less humid areas of the county.

To round off a fun couple of hours, a Scarce Fungus Weevil Platyrhinus resinosus was found on an ash log with numerous Daldinia fruit bodies on it.

This little valley proved a lot more productive than I expected, and added 38 new tetrad records for ST17L, S and R.

Antivirus

Due to that pesky virus keeping us close to home, I now have few excuses for not doing some outstanding jobs around the house.  Last Friday I looked at the lawn and whilst deciding it didn’t need cutting just yet, I spotted some Calliergonella cuspidata fruiting.  I occasionally see this species fruiting, but I think always in fairly wet habitats like flushes and I don’t think I have seen it fruiting in such a dry lawn before – perhaps it is a symptom of the very wet 6 months we have just endured.  

While taking the photo I remembered that I had spotted a nice patch of male Lunularia in one of our flower beds last autumn, so thought I would get a pic of that – unfortunately the patch had almost completely degraded, but there was one male bit still showing. 

Later that day, I made use of my daily exercise allowance by walking along some of the lanes near home, returning along the canal towpath.    The only bryo that caught my eye was a lovely patch of fruiting Bartramia pomiformis, on a small rock embedded in a lane bank.  

Walking past a pile of mixed clay and rubble by the canal, something shiny caught my eye and it turned out to be a small ammonite – a bit of a surprise as it not the sort of fossil you expect to see in Devonian country. Further fossicking resulted in a few more ammonite specimens and bits of broken Gryphaea and belemnite.     

I’ll see what else I can find in the garden over the next few weeks – might have to eke bryos out a bit, but there are plenty of other groups to get my teeth into.  After a week of working from home I am now up to 22 bird species on my new list “Staring out of spare bedroom window whilst taking part in telephone/ Skype sessions”.   Perhaps I’ll start a separate list for each window of the house!   

Daltonia update

Daltonia splachnoides habitat in Pentreclwydau Forest

Apologies for labouring on this subject, but I thought this might be of interest. Firstly, we have searched for Daltonia in 5 likely sites in NPT over the past few days. Most trips have been disappointing, but we have managed to locate a large population in Pentreclwydau Forest where at least 10 willow trees have conspicuous tufts, probably 30 + plants in total. This may be just the tip of the iceberg. There are lots of willow here and the habitat is more 'typical' of the places described in Irish Sitka forests and Brechfa, i.e. willows in the vicinity of streams and wet ditches. Some of the tufts are relatively large (15mm or more in diameter) and they occur in places where they are easy to spot. In fact the glossy, dry colonies, that stick out like little shelves, are fairly easy to see from a couple of metres away. It looks as if the population has produced lots of sporophytes although some  have finished fruiting and several don't seem to have any capsules. Judging by the size of the population and the size of some plants, I guess it has been in this forest for several years. 

We now have Daltonia in 3 NPT tetrads, making a total of 4 for VC41. There must be more sites in the county, but it has a long way to go to catch up with Colura. Presumably it is a more recent colonist but I also suspect that it is a bit more fussy about where it grows. Daltonia associates on the Pentreclwydau willows include: Zygodon conoideus (abundant), Radula complanata, Lejeunea patens, Colura calyptrifolia, Orthotrichum pulchellum, Metzgeria temperata, Cryphaea heteromalla, Ulota bruchii, Ulota crispa,  Ulota phyllantha, Hypnum andoi, Brachythecium rutabulum.

Large Daltonia tuft on willow, Pentreclwydau

Daltonia splachnoides with abundant capsules, on willow in Pentrecwydau  Sitka Spruce Forest