The Moss Year - 2012– 2012
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New county records – mosses The moss year - 2012– 2012 012 was an exceptional year for vice- Nick Hodgetts and David Holyoak (Lockhart county records, prompted by the et al., 2012). England and Scotland also saw recording deadline for the new edition of increased activity, but the numbers for Wales 2the national bryophyte atlas, and some initial were slightly lower. Once again the new records vetting of the accumulated data. For mosses, have a very wide geographical spread, and with a the number of additions and amendments to the large number of contributors. There are new or Census Catalogue in 2012 was 731, of which updated entries for 119 out of the 153 British 657 were new records or post-1960 updates. and Irish vice-counties, excluding deletions and These break down as shown in the table below. corrections. Even after discounting deletions and bracketings, this represents an increase of a third Additions to the British and Irish list over 2011. This is largely explained by activities in Ireland, especially targeted recording in North The diversity of the British and Irish flora has Cork and South Limerick, the summer meeting been increased by the formal publication of one in Mayo and Sligo, and continuing intensive field newly described species, and three additions work by Rory Hodd and his colleagues. A small to the flora. The new species is Orthotrichum but significant number of the new records were cambrense Bosanquet & F.Lara, discovered in collected in previous decades and were elicited by Carmarthenshire by Sam Bosanquet. It is like O. Mark Hill’s work in validating Atlas data against tenellum but with rounded leaf apices (Bosanquet the Census Catalogue. This also accounts for a & Lara, 2012), and its origin is uncertain. number of deletions, but most of the purging Another Orthotrichum new to Britain is O. of Irish records is the result of the research done scanicum Grönvall in Derbyshire, yet another for the Irish Red Data Book by Neil Lockhart, example of an epiphytic colonist that is probably 2011 2012 England Wales Scotland Ireland England Wales Scotland Ireland New entries 91 41 77 132 104 35 93 217 Debrackets* 38 14 30 67 46 8 49 105 Bracketings† – 3 – – 5 – – – Reinstated – – – – 2 – – 2 Deletions 3 – – 6 10 1 2 52 Totals 132 58 107 205 167 44 144 376 *Debrackets are existing vice-county entries for which a post-1960 record has been vouched. †Bracketings are existing entries for which the post-1960 records are unconfirmed or erroneous, but older record(s) are valid. FieldBryology No109 | May13 71 New county records – mosses a recent arrival following improvements in air Londonderry during the summer meeting, has quality (Blockeel, 2012). Grimmia anomala only two other sites. Plagiopus oederianus at its Schimp., on the other hand, has clearly always old site at Sallagh Braes in Co Antrim is the first been here but has been overlooked previously confirmed record since 1970.Fissidens fontanus as G. hartmannii; there are old and recent has always been rare in Ireland. At Lough Leane records from four localities in Scotland and near Killarney it may have been introduced with three in Ireland (Lönnell et al., 2012). Finally boats, but is has also been found in Lough Ross, Sam Bosanquet has investigated Entosthodon Co Armagh. Didymodon tomaculosus in Mid fascicularis and found that some collections Cork is a significant extension to the south-west, from S. England and Wales belong to the suggesting that, as in England and Wales, it is closely related E. mouretii (Corb.) Jelenc, which widespread but overlooked. Many of the Irish has an otherwise Mediterranean distribution localities for Campylostelium saxicola are old (Bosanquet, 2012). ones and it can be a difficult moss to find; Mark Hill spotted it at a new site while recording in The moss year Co Limerick, indicating that it too may be overlooked. There have been other exceptional finds. The In England Cumberland produced the largest most extraordinary is the discovery by Rory Hodd number of new records, thanks to the spring and Caoimhe Muldoon of Meesia triquetra in Co meeting, but some well-recorded counties such as Sligo, a relict boreal species of rich fen known to East Sussex and Derbyshire also produced good have been lost from its only previous Irish site in numbers. Pete Martin found Dicranodontium Mayo, and unknown in Britain. Tomentypnum asperulum in the north Pennines, its first English nitens is also new to Co Sligo, demonstrating site south of the Border country. This species the enormous value of these Irish wetlands. has a curiously localised distribution that is not Two further species have been rediscovered in easy to explain. The new Pennine site makes Ireland after long intervals. Syntrichia princeps, its absence from the Lake District even more last recorded in Ireland in 1962, was refound by surprising. Records of species at the edge of their Nick Hodgetts in Co Antrim, and Entosthodon ranges or that are in decline are always pleasing muhlenbergii, with no confirmed records since to see. Tortula wilsonii is certainly in decline 1852, by Sam Bosanquet in Cork. It is curious and has been lost from all of its eastern and that E. muhlenbergii occurs at such a southern northern sites, but Des Callaghan has refound location; E. pulchellus, which has a more it in North Devon. The new Derbyshire record pronounced Mediterranean distribution, is a of Diphyscium foliosum is a long way from any more likely species to occur there and was indeed other known extant populations, and was found found in South Tipperary in 2011. with good capsules. Ptilium crista-castrensis is To judge from the number of new records for often under suspicion of being introduced at several of Ireland’s rarest mosses, the work done its peripheral English sites, many of which are for the Irish Red Data Book is only a starting in forestry plantations. That is not the case point. Encalypta rhaptocarpa rediscovered in with Alistair Headley’s discovery of it on Ilkley Co Leitrim is the second extant site for Ireland, Moor, where it grows on unburnt heather moor. and Schsitisium pruinosum, found in Co Our knowledge of the distribution of Tortula 72 FieldBryology No109 | May13 New county records – mosses New county records – mosses rDiphyscium foliosum at Thirkelow, near Buxton, Derbyshire.T. Blockeel schimperi is still fragmentary, but its range has notable Welsh finds are the new localities for now been extended to Northumberland, a long rare coastal species of Bryum, B. warneum and way to the north of its previously known sites, B. marratii in Glamorgan and B. marratii also which are concentrated in East Anglia. Other in Carmarthenshire. B. warneum was found in notable English records are of Grimmia incurva a recently developed slack and demonstrates the by Pete Martin in Cumberland, apparently potential for rare species to recover lost ground only the second recent record for the Lake when conditions are right. Grimmia muhlenbeckii District, Atrichum tenellum by Peter Haworth was previously known only from one old locality in East Sussex, and a new East Anglian site for in Wales; the new ones from Breidden Hill and Plagiothecium cavifolium by Richard Fisk. Snowdonia confirm that it is alive and well. In Wales Carmarthenshire was the most In Scotland much work has been done in productive vice-county, with 10 new records under-recorded areas with high numbers of due to Sam Bosanquet’s work. Perhaps the most new records from the three south-western vice- FieldBryology No109 | May13 73 73 New county records – mosses counties, Dumfriesshire, Kirkcudbrightshire and mine in Carmarthenshire. Wigtownshire. One of the highlights elsewhere It is no surprise that interesting epiphytes was a new site in East Lothian for Conardia continue to turn up. A small piece of Leptodon compacta, an elusive species which has an smithii found by Robin Stevenson on a unusually wide geographical spread of localities conference pear in Norfolk is the most startling; for a nationally rare plant. Nick Hodgetts found it has a Mediterranean-Atlantic distribution and Sphagnum riparium in Skye, its first Hebridean has not previously been found in East Anglia. locality, and Gordon Rothero turned up Robin also found Antitrichia curtipendula in Paraleucobryum longifolium in East Sutherland, a the same orchard. Orthotrichum speciosum, O. second site for N.W. Scotland. In 2010 Gordon pumilum and O. consimile have all turned up in collected a small distinctive Schistidium on new localities in England, and Ulota calvescens at crumbling soily shale in Glen Nochty resembling new sites in Carmarthenshire and Dumfriesshire. S. confertum but now identified as S. frigidum var. The latter ought now to be found in N. Wales havaasii. Its only other recent localities in Britain and the Lake District. Another oceanic species are on Ben Lawers and the island of Rum. that does not know its place is Sematophyllum A number of mosses are showing an increasing substrumulosum. Sam Bosanquet knows how to tendency to occur in ruderal habitats. Mark Pool find it, and has now extended its range to Co has found Dialytrichia saxicola on tarmac in Londonderry and Anglesey, far to the north of Devon, suggesting that like D. mucronata, it may its former range. well become more widespread in weedy habitats. More surprising is the case of Bryoerythrophyllum New vice-county records and amendments ferruginascens. It has been known for some time to occur on old mine spoil and forest roads, but Vouchers are deposited in the BBS herbarium in 2012 there were two records from gravelly (BBSUK) unless otherwise stated. Other soil at the edge of very ordinary tarmac roads, in herbarium abbreviations are DBN = National Cheshire and Wigtownshire.