Monday 17 November 2014

Always keep your eyes peeled

Just a quick post, as I've microscoped a moss I grabbed on Saturday while walking to Tesco from Carmarthen town centre with my kids.  Johnny insisted on balancing along the low wall by Carmarthen Park, with me holding his hand.  At one point he stopped briefly, and I noticed a Weissia with extremely long, pressed-together perichaetial leaves, growing on the crumbly soil of the edge of the lawn.  I have just opened up those perichaetials, revealing unripe but expanded capsules of Weissia longifolia var longifolia: only the 5th Carms site although the 2nd in an urban park as it is also present in Llandeilo.

This is a slightly more mature patch of W longifolia photographed a few springs ago on Anglesey.

2 comments:

  1. As you say, good mosses can be found anywhere!

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  2. I love these chance finds. Sounds like one for me to look out for in Cardiff.

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