Meeting report
6 of us met at Wendy’s house at the slightly earlier time of 10am (to allow plenty of time for lunch, tea and cake!). It was a dull, grey day so we opted to begin with the open area around the house in the hope that the weather would brighten up. We spent a sociable hour or so recording ‘grots’ in the parking area and on garden walls (Syntrichias, Tortula muralis, a few Bryums, Didymodon nicholsonii of course, plus D. insulanus, D, luridus, D. sinuosus and D. rigidulus). With the aid of a pair of binoculars, we managed to identify a single cushion of Racomitrium lanuginosum on the roof, plus Grimmia pulvinata.
We continued to the orchard which proved good for epiphytes – most of the expected Orthotrichums, plenty of Cryphaea, a couple more Syntrichias and on the liverwort front, highly gemmiferous Metzgeria consanguinea masquerading as M. violaceaea, Radula complanata, Frullania dilatata, Myriocoleopsis minutissima… Towards the end of the orchard, the rain started, Wendy went back to the house to start heating up soup – and the rest of us gradually made our way back – though not before George found a single cushion of the Lewinskya striata he’d been searching for!
Lunch was delicious: a selection of 2 soups, warm bread and cheese scones – which set us up nicely for the afternoon. Waterproofs were re-donned and we headed out again, across a field towards the woodland.
Here we recorded many of the usual woodland species, gradually making our way downhill towards a stream. Sharon was miles ahead of the rest of us as usual 😊, so was first to discover that the stream was tufaceous with some really good tufa ‘waterfalls’. The far bank was quite calcareous and added a few calcicoles such as Ctenidium molluscum to the list. But the real attraction was the stream which we ended up following (upstream) for the remainder of the afternoon. At one point, there was a lovely bank of Palustriella commutata, a typical indicator of highly calcareous habitats. A little further up, some of us risked life and limb climbing up a vertical waterfall to join the rest of the group who had taken the sensible route along the bank. Just before 3pm we reached a point where the stream started to peter out, and tea and cake seemed an attractive proposition – so we made our way back to the house for some more of Wendy’s excellent cooking.
We had feared that the bryologising might be slightly dull in this little corner of VC35, but in the event discovered some lovely habitat to satisfy even the most discerning bryologist! Thank you to Wendy and Trevor for their hospitality and for sharing their house and ‘garden’ for the day.
Download the morning's records Download the afternoon's records
