Thursday 28 April 2016

Gwrhyd marshy grasslands

I've not done any square bashing for a little while and after a couple of days being office-bound I thought I'd take Alfie for a spin this evening and knock off SN70P, this being the only sub-60 tetrad left in the hectad. Sod's law, this happened as soon as I got there...
Eventually it did ease off and I recorded a selection of the usual stream, track and plantation species. A quick look at the marshy grasslands on the west side of the stream, turned out to provide the most interesting assemblage of species with several Sphagnum species dominating the vegetation along with frequent Carex spp., Carum verticillatum, Eriophorum angustifolium and occasional E. vaginatum, Pedicularis sylvatica, etc. The highlight was several tufts of fruiting Splachnum ampullaceum, sadly a little way off maturity but rather nice all the same. There are some interesting coal tips a little further north which I've not checked to see if Charles and Hilary have looked at, but the extensive marshy grasslands are definitely worth a more detailed look as I probably spent no more than 15 minutes in one little corner.
I also made a quick stop at Cwmnantlleucu Quarry as the rocks around the quarry entrance were accessible without trespassing and were very mossy, despite all the dust - a few samples to clean up and check, but more to follow.

3 comments:

  1. Lovely Splachnum! I'm sure I've been to Gwrhyd Meadows, but didn't record (or see any Splach) then.

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  2. Excellent! I can't remember when I last did any square bashing it's been so long :-(

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  3. Great stuff Barry, another Splachnum record for NPT.

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