A couple of days ago I found myself being escorted into the Millenium Seedbank at Wakehurst Place to give a talk on Barbastelle Bats (featuring a picture of a Ferengi from Star Trek of course). I was nattering away with Ben Rainbow at the back of the group and as we walked up to the entrance we were distracted by some fancy raised beds with wild plants set out in various habitats, the nearest one being vegetated shingle. I saw there two plants I had never seen in the wild, Yellow Vetch and Small-flowered Buttercup, I recognised them both instantly and felt excitement closely followed by frustration as they were not wild and I couldn't tick them. Ben said in reference to the vetch "I saw that at Widewater on Monday". Three hours later, I was at Widewater and the above photos are of the wild plant. My 1220th vascular plant. There wasn't a huge amount there and it took a bit of searching. The vegetated shingle is really nice with masses of Sea Heath, Thrift, Rough Clover, BFT and Sea Kale.
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.
One last identification from yesterday is this male Neriene montana. Quite pleased with the photo, the dappled shade of the partially opened oak canopy provides a good light unlike this relentless sunlight that also super charges every invertebrate, even in the shade there is a lot of latent heat making everything very mobile. In other words, rubbish weather for photography out in the open but good for recording. I started surveying yesterday around 6.30 am and was too hot then in just a t-shirt! Starting to get close to the point when I can't carry enough water!
Wow what a day, I just tallied up all the firsts and I added 13 species to my list today (with a LOT of help from Howard Matcham). We went to Wakehurst Place to look at the vegetation that grows on sandrock cliffs. There are some pretty rare liverworts (I saw five new ones day) that show a relict distribution in the Weald where their main stronghold is the north west. This includes this rather fancy (it's glaucous!) liverwort, Calypogeia integristipula. Here it is again with gemmae.
This is also a real rarity, we saw what is most likely to be the vast majority of this liverwort that exists in south east England, Harpanthus scutatus.
Perhaps the most abundant moss on the rocks after the common Mnium hornum is Tetraphis pellucida.
Here is Howard investigating a tiny patch of green on a huge rock. It's amazing how someone elses expertise appears so effortless to them, I'm lucky to be able to spend time in the field at a leisurely pace (I wasn't working today) with such a great botanist!
Not far from there we noticed this HUGE patch of Tunbridge Filmy-fern riding out the hot weather unscathed.
If you think I wasn't keeping an eye on the invertebrates today, you'd be wrong! I caught up with this smart little harvestman Megabunus diadema. Check out his eye-spikes, like a cowboy's stirrups. However, the thing that got me really excited was an amazing black and red bug called Corizus hyoscyami but I didn't get a photo!
So, all in all I have added 5 liverworts, 2 fungi, an algae, a moss, a moth, a bug, a fly and a harvestman leaving me on 3264! Watch out Martin Harvey I am closing in on you!
Posts
