When liverworts look like mushy peas

Posted by Graeme Lyons , Thursday, 27 March 2014 20:27

Here we have the liverwort, Scapania undulata, one of many scarce bryophytes I saw yesterday in a ghyll in Long Wood near Wakehurst Place. I think it looks a bit like mushy peas. Here is the same liverwort with the striking cranefly Tipula vittata.

Tom Ottley and Jacqui Hutson were kind enough to allow me to tag along and show me some of the scarcer ghyll stream bryophytes and this particular ghyll had lots of rare species.

Perhaps the rarest moss we saw yesterday was the strange and tiny Tetradontium bownianum but it is so small and grows in such shade that a photo wasn't an option. Second rarest was this tiny liverwort growing on a rock in a ghyll stream Jungermannia pumila, another species with a very north western distribution.

This a great big patch of the pleurocarp Hyocomium armoricum, another species of moss I have never seen before. Opposite-leaved Golden Saxifrage can be seen flowering along the ghyll too.

I finally connected with Hay-scented Buckler-fern!

Finally, not rare but one of the few common shield bugs I didn't have a photo of. This is the Bronze Shield Bug Troilus luridus.

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