The Moss Year - 2013– 2012

New county records – mosses The moss year - 2013– 2012 nsurprisingly, 2013 was a less busy year Additions to the British and Irish list for new records than 2012, following cessation of intensive recording for The British and Irish list has been augmented Uthe new edition of the national bryophyte by the discovery of one addition to the flora, atlas. For mosses, the number of additions and one reinstated species, and by taxonomic amendments to the Census Catalogue in 2013 changes in the genus Oxystegus. The addition is was 389, of which 363 were new records or post- the outstanding discovery by Sam Bosanquet 1960 updates. These breakdown as shown in the of Crossidium squamiferum (Viv.) Jur. on the table below. Isle of Wight (Bosanquet, 2014). This is a These numbers are more representative of southern European, primarily Mediterranean normal levels of recording activity, as in the species, and its occurrence is comparable with early 2000s, although the Irish total last year was those of Southbya nigrella and Plasteurhynchium boosted by a backlog of records from Northern meridionale in southern England. It is impossible Ireland. Recording in England and Wales, as to know at present whether it is a recent colonist measured by the number of new records, has or a long-standing resident. The reinstated been relatively stable, the reduction being more species is Encalypta pilifera Funck. It was known marked in Scotland and especially in Ireland, to 19th century bryologists as a variety of E. reflecting the end of the many targeted recording vulgaris, differing in the long hair-point of the activities for the atlas in both of these regions. leaf, but it subsequently fell into obscurity. It is Once again the new records have a very wide known from the Carboniferous Limestone of the geographical spread, and with a large number of Peak District and Wales (Blockeel, 2013a). contributors. There are new or updated entries The genus Oxystegus has been reviewed in for 90 out of the 153 British and Irish vice- the light of a recent taxonomic revision by counties, excluding deletions and corrections. the continental bryologists H. Köckinger, O. 2013 2012 England Wales Scotland Ireland England Wales Scotland Ireland New entries 85 41 62 61 104 35 93 217 Debrackets* 42 8 17 47 46 8 49 105 Reinstated – – 3 – 2 – – 2 Bracketings† 1 – – – 5 – – – Deletions 14 3 5 – 10 1 2 52 Totals 142 52 87 108 167 44 144 376 *Debrackets are existing vice-county entries for which a post-1960 record has been vouched; this total also includes one species whose status changed from Persistent Introduction to normal current record. †Bracketings are existing entries for which the post-1960 records are unconfirmed or erroneous, but older record(s) are valid. FieldBryology No111 | May14 83 New county records – mosses Werner and R.M. Ros (Köckinger et al., 2010). of Rum (from a collection made during the BBS An additional species, O. daldinianus (De Not.) meeting in 2004). The most outstanding find in Köckinger, O.Werner & Ros, occurs in Britain and Ireland is Rory Hodd’s rediscovery of Bartramia Ireland, but its separation from O. tenuirostris is halleriana at Glendalough in Co. Wicklow, a not always easy. Another newly described species, moss judged to be extinct in the recent Irish Red O. minor Köckinger, O.Werner & Ros, occurs Data Book. Weissia rutilans has very few Irish in Scotland but is morphologically very difficult sites; Nick Hodgetts has added a new one on and requires further study. Finally, O. tenuirostris Benbradagh (Londonderry). Clearly, in spite of (Trichostomum tenuirostre) includes two varieties extensive surveys in Ireland in recent years, there with revised definitions, var. tenuirostris and var. is still plenty of scope for exciting discoveries holtii. At present O. daldinianus and the two there. varieties of O. tenuirostris are being included in These are all rare mosses in Britain and the vice-county recording scheme, but O. minor Ireland, detected by diligent recording. Other awaits further study (Blockeel, 2013b). records reflect environmental changes. Epiphytes continue to astonish. The most notable range The moss year 2013 extension is that of Ulota calvescens, previously believed to be a species of hyperoceanic In England, Atrichum angustatum, a species distribution but in 2013 found to be widespread though to be on the brink of extinction, has been in the Southern Pennines (Blockeel & Turner, found at a new site in Gloucestershire by Richard 2013). There have been further records of other Lansdown and Ellie Phillips. The plants were expanding species such as Ulota coarctata in ambiguous in the field, perhaps because of their Sussex, Orthotrichum speciosum at two new sites immature state, but have been confirmed by in Yorkshire, and O. consimile in Hertfordshire DNA analysis, leading to the hope that it might and Nottinghamshire. O. consimile is now persist undetected elsewhere. Howard Wallis’ known from 8 recent sites in England. It belongs find of Grimmia crinita in Surrey is equally to a complex of species mainly found in western remarkable (Wallis, 2013), and may represent the North America, and recent research has shown only extant population in Britain and Ireland, as that the European plant is correctly named O. it is thought to have gone from the Cornish site columbicum Mitt. (Medina et al., 2012). Richard where it was found in 1999. G. crinita appears to Fisk has found another East Anglian site for be an infrequent and temporary colonist in our Antitrichia curtipendula, in West Suffolk, but its islands, which are at the edge of its geographic English distribution remains fragmentary. Like range. Grimmia anomala, only recently added Antitrichia, Neckera pumila has been very slow to to the British and Irish list from Scotland and spread into much of central and eastern England, Ireland, is now known in Wales, detected by Sam but the site at Sale in Greater Manchester (VC Bosanquet in Snowdonia in its characteristic 58) is surely an example of recent colonisation. habitat on lakeside boulders. In Scotland the The factors influencing these changes are complex distribution of Schistidium maritimum subsp. and not clearly understood; they undoubtedly piliferum has been extended from the previously include climate change and air quality. known sites in Shetland to the remote St Kilda Wetland habitats are increasingly threatened group in the Outer Hebrides and to the island and it is good to report several new and 84 FieldBryology No111 | May14 rFig. 1: Reaps Moor, Staffordshire, habitat of Hamatocaulis vermicosus, September 2013. T Blockeel unexpected records. Scorpidium scorpioides recorded. Indeed many of the upland areas south and Hamatocaulis vernicosus have been found of the Scottish highlands have been patchily at Reaps Moor in Staffordshire (Fig. 1), an covered in recent years. Pterigynandrum filiforme exceptional site previously known for an isolated had not been observed for several decades south population of Tomentypnum nitens (which is still of the Highlands, with the exception of two present there). Tomentypnum itself was found epiphytic populations in East Anglia which unexpectedly on Raasay during the BBS summer are clearly recent colonisations. In 2013 it was meeting, its first Hebridean locality and remote rediscovered in a typical lakeside boulder habitat from its other Scottish sites. Drepanocladus in Selkirkshire. Likewise Glyphomitrium daviesii sendtneri is a declining and taxonomically rather was unrecorded in North Wales in the second difficult species; Sam Bosanquet has turned up half of the 20th century but several records good material of it in a dune slack at Laugharne have been made since 2000, most recently from Burrows, Carmarthenshire. Aberglaslyn in Merioneth. Such records show It is invariably a pleasure to rediscover old sites the value of systematic and informed recording. for scarce bryophytes. Upper Teesdale has long New records of species at the edge of their been famous for its flora, but some parts of the known ranges are always welcome. Des Callaghan region have hardly been visited by bryologists surveyed Moel Hiraddug in Flintshire at the end in recent decades. A visit to the Cronkley area of 2013 and found a host of noteworthy species (VC 65, NW Yorkshire) in 2013 resulted in there, including Entosthodon muhlenbergii, the rediscovery of Kiaeria blyttii, apparently Microbryum floerkeanum, M. curvicollum, Bryum not recorded on the southern watershed of canariense and B. kunzei. This is the first record Teesdale since the mid 19th century. Sphagnum of M. floerkeanum in North Wales since 1861. platyphyllum and Grimmia ramondii were found Bryum donianum has been found in Derbyshire in the same area – hard evidence that this (and along the NW/SE line that marks the edge of other) parts of northern England remain poorly its British range. Tortula viridifolia has scattered FieldBryology No111 | May14 85 New county records – mosses sites on the East coast of Scotland, and has a maritime moss in Britain and Ireland, from now been found on the remote St Kilda group a crevice in sandstone rocks by Loch Stemster in the Outer Hebrides. The two new sites for inland in Caithness. Ptilium crista-castrensis has Sematophyllum substrumulosum are within its been turning up in many new sites south of its recently extended range but demonstrate that core range, but Johnny Turner’s discovery of an it is consolidating its presence. It’s amusing to epiphytic patch on a willow in SW Yorkshire see that Sam Bosanquet’s record from the Isle (Figs. 5 and 6) is extraordinary. of Wight came from ‘Fantasy Land’ – a case Buxbaumia aphylla remains elusive, and there of fantasy turning into reality! The spread of have been very few new records in the past 25 Tortula amplexa has been slow and sporadic, and years. Stewart Taylor’s recent finds in Abernethy must rely on the dispersal of rhizoidal tubers or Forest (Moray and Easterness) are outstanding.

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