Tuesday 12 April 2016

At the zoo

"Someone told me it's all happening at the zoo.  I do believe it, I do believe it's true"

A visit to Bristol Zoo with Bea and Johnny gave me the chance to check on the Antitrichia patch that I found several years ago on a Paulownia tree by the Prairie Dog enclosure.  The Prairie Dogs have been replaced by a Pudu, but the tree is still there and so is a scrappy patch of Antitrichia.



I looked at the Zoo's bryophytes in reasonable detail with Richard Lansdown (whilst our then toddling daughters kept themselves entertained) a few months after spotting the Antitrichia, so I didn't do any other recording today.  However, I noticed a patch of pale moss on top of a Tree-fern and thought that might be worth a look.  Sure enough, it was Leptotheca gaudichaudii - one of the more regular Tree-fern aliens in Britain and Ireland.  I haven't noticed this moss or the Tree-ferns at the Zoo before, but I think it's an area I've bypassed before.

1 comment:

  1. I looked for it when I was there in February, but couldn't find it. For some reason I'd got it in my head that the tree was by the monkey enclosure. Next time...

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