Cullaloe Hills coverage to April 19th

19th April walk added in pink

Water levels Cullaloe LNR

Water levels have now dropped to the point where the path around the small pond is passable. Also the tree stump from which the title bar picture was taken is now exposed again. This is what it looks like after months under water!

Cullaloe Hills

Tried to fill in a bit of the gap in the coverage so far and re-connect with two species of Sphagna that weren't identified before. One of them is S.palustre. The other is still in the lab

Sunny day = good for drying out bryophytes!

everything looking a bit dry

Cullaloe Hills sphagna

Three species of Sphagna collected from the Cullaloe hills end of last month

squarrosum and ???

Gymnocolia inflata

From Water of Leith above Harperrig Reservoir, on pathside banking. According to Watson moist upland soils are its favored habitat, and it can be the most prominent liverwort in many wet heath situations. Occurs (also) on peat. It was the only hepatic I remember once we got up towards 400m (although the water itself held Scapania undulata)

BBS Field Guide page

Gymnocolia inflata

 

Nowellia curvifolia

From Water of Leith above Harperrig Reservoir, 12th April 2014, NT0857. On a rotting log.

BBS Field Guide page

Nowellia curvifolia

Bryo outing - top of Water of Leith from Harperrig Reservoir

Saturday 12th April - on a grim day starting with wind and occasional spraying rain five of us headed to Harperrig Reservoir with the aim of following the Water of Leith up to 400m, leaving only one section of Water of Leith to do to complete the journey. The weather occasionally brightened throughout the day, but the wind didn't let up much, making any sheltered area a welcome break. No idea what the total tally for the day was, but it served as a good intro to Sphagna for me, and I saw 18 species that I can remember (in total, not Sphagna!)  that I'd never seen before, including 3 liverworts.

the route

Harperrig

Ulota phyllantha

Happy sunshine wanderings

There's a tree under here somewhere!

Closer examination

Someone came to see what we were up to

Some different habitat

A neighbour of Nowellia (more later) on a log

The landscape

Straminergon stramineum

Coltsfoot, with leaves starting to show

Pogonatum urnigerum

Gymnocolea inflata

Sphagnum denticulatum's cowhorn branches

Happy Fontinalis

A nice bryo-garden

Very happy Scapania

Sphagnum

At 400m, still no base

The end of the day, and the rainbow

Homework

Timpanum

Pogonatum aloides timpanum

Moss gallery Sphagnum

Sphagnum squarrosum

Cullaloe Hills, NT1888, 30/03/2014

Riccardia palmata, Dumfries and Galloway

From a stump in the garden of our host for the day. It is just barely palmate in this case, and mostly looks like individual tongues/fingers. According to the field guide it is "characteristic of rotten logs in humid woodlands in the north and west" which seems about right: link

Riccardia palmata, Palmate Germanderwort