Let's play 'spot the fern'! A 🧵 Wilson's Filmy-fern is a tiny species, with fronds just one cell thick! Characteristic of Scotland's temperate rainforest, it usually grows in lush bryophyte carpets. At Bracklinn Falls nr Callander, it hadn't been seen since 1999. Can you find it on the photo? - ThreadSky

bsbiscotland.bsky.social • 26 days ago

Let's play 'spot the fern'! A 🧵
Wilson's Filmy-fern is a tiny species, with fronds just one cell thick! Characteristic of Scotland's temperate rainforest, it usually grows in lush bryophyte carpets.
At Bracklinn Falls nr Callander, it hadn't been seen since 1999. Can you find it on the photo?

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bsbiscotland.bsky.social•26 days ago

Ta da! The photo on the right shows some Wilson's Filmy-fern fronds poking out of the thick bryophyte layer. Some ripe sori (the spore-producing bodies), enclosed in black indusia (protective scales), can be seen

bsbiscotland.bsky.social•26 days ago

One of the striking bryophytes growing with it at the top of the precipitous river gorge is the leafy liverwort Bazzania trilobata (Greater Whipwort), forming beautiful hummocks and sheets along with Isothecium myosuroides, Diplophyllum albicans etc.

bsbiscotland.bsky.social•26 days ago

Wilson's Filmy-fern can form dense patches, like this colony on Mull. However, away from its stronghold in west Scotland, it seems to have declined. The change map shows 10km squares where it has been lost (blue downwards triangles), gained (red upward triangles) or is stable (pink squares)

bsbiscotland.bsky.social•26 days ago

Bracklinn Falls is in a 10km square where Wilson's Filmy-fern was thought to have been lost. BSBI's Scottish Hectad Rare Plant Project (or SHaRPP) is trying to refind old plant records of species like Wilson's Filmy-fern, to help identify genuine losses vs under-recording
https://bsbi.org/scottish-hectad-rare-plant-project

bsbiscotland.bsky.social•26 days ago

This Wilson's Filmy-fern refind has helped correct the map for this species, which is fab (although it does appear to be hanging on, with very few fronds present)! However, there are plenty of other 'lost' plants at Bracklinn left to find when the summer comes...
https://plantatlas2020.org/atlas/2cd4p9h.bg

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