astridbiddle.bsky.social
Joint BSBI and BBS recorder for Hertfordshire.
🌱Celebrating the joy of Botany and Bryology.
❤️Aquatic plants & many other. Scarce Tufted-sedge. Plant ecology. Rivers, ponds & lakes.
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Warning though; the doorbell rang in the middle of recording this. It was my new waders, ready for the new botanical season! (I'm up to mischief again). Unfortunately, it has created a little déjà vu in the middle. Feel free to fast forward a bit.
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Can I join too?
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A fine filamentous alga grew with it, and strands wound around some of the leaves. Both grew on the decaying grass. I haven't identified the alga yet. After dinner?
Interesting that the gemmae had washed off the leaf tips of the L. gemmascens in the heavy rain, so not immediately identifiable.
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Thatch Moss- found on decaying straw of thatched roofs- slightly shaded and possibly fertilised by crows.
L. gemmascens is not threatened in the UK, but discounting unnatural habitats, it is currently only known to occur only at four sites.
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Drone imagery of the UK C. cespitosa population.
I love the way they grow to a defined spacing. I probably need some kind of vector analysis for this?
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Oh thanks 🙂
I'm really struggling to find a way of cramming so much information into 20 minutes!
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Cute! In Herts woodland it's Hares which spook me as they only run when you just about trip over them.
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Three other talks from Mark Spencer, Ian Denholm, and Jonathan Shanklin.
I've been preparing my slides, and I think I have been a little too creative 🤣
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Ticket booked! 🙂
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This is bad!
And I'm also beginning to adopt Trump's linguistic eloquence!
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Finally diving into the willow carr, too calcareous for the rarities, but pleased with Plagiothecium nemorale, and later sight of Rhizomnium puntatum.
It was cold, but not cold enough to stop the willow buds breaking; their fluffy catkins expanding, peeling back their single bud scales.
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Over to the "Chinese Bridge" where each bridge finial seemed to have a different covering, in this case Dicranoweisia cirrata. The weir below with damp walls covered in Cirriphyllum crassinervium, and wthin the water, a sheet of Rhynchostegium riparioides.
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Vulnerable also to loss during building restorations, or overtidying.
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Thanks, I had just done that. 😀
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Looks like the upper-tier flowers first. After pollination, does the orientation of the flower change to vertical?
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The baby sedges for Herts are grown by Nosterfield and I'm collecting them in March!
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This too is what I hope for the Scarce Tufted-sedge (C. cespitosa) reintroduction in Herts!
As the tussocks grow, they also form non-soil seed banks. Seeds from the sedges themselves and the plants around them are then stored for as much as 50-60 years. www.researchgate.net/publication/...
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Tussock-sedges are truely wonderful beings!
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I have found Trighetto on the internet for a very special sedge celebration. A species reintroduction in the UK.😆
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It was indeed always a secondary woodland feature.
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In the New Forest Holly grows on the drier root plates of the canopy trees in Bog woodland, and on Alder stools in Alder moors. Yes Holms too.
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Given the sculpting the deer manage to do on Holly in Herts, yet there increased domination of the mid-layer. The Ivy is never now knocked back by the frost, threatening epiphytic bryophytes. In newer secondary woodland it threatens other species.
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Ivy tends not to be seen in Ancient Woodland in Cambs/ Herts, possibly the result of the sheep/ pig grazing regime that once occurred in these woodlands. Secondary woodland has Ivy but in recent years this has increased in the SE due to longer thermal time. Even H. colchica is established locally.
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Warmer winters give more favorable conditions. The seeds seem to germinate earlier too. Later, splitting bulbs are pushed out of the ground & roll around to achieve dispersal. In drought years, this aestivation strategy is promoted further; soils become more friable & ground cleared of vegetation.
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This is so cool!
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Where evergreens take over=longer thermal time in warmer winters. Holly & Ivy gain the upper hand over deciduous species.
Perhaps it should be evergreening? In extreme, heading towards mediterranian-style broadleaved evergreen woodland with lauriphyllous evergreen trees. Chuck in some palms too.
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Wondering if garden escapes may have introduced a new entity? Is Carex agastachys somehow involved? Lots of questions.
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Yes, that may be the case +. I was in the low nutrient New Forest last week looking at a site & thinking "why is C. pendula not going mad here?" However, other factors are at play too. Deer probably spread seeds. It's winter-green & Laurification of woodlands suggest such a feature is an advantage.
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Atmospheric Hg desposition is interesting.
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Then the extraordinary site of Pendulous sedge (Carex pendula), creating a monoculture through the base of a young stand of Ash. Many of the Ash had succumb to the effects of Ash Dieback; the trunks littering the ground. Many years ago, C. pendula had only been recorded along the ditch edges.
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Again on Ash was Plenogemma phyllantha, which is a more recent arrival to Cambridgeshire.
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Looking at the environmental data, I can see that it's a chemical failure on Mercury and its Compounds and Polybrominated diphenyl ethers. I guess the mercury originates from mining operations. The PBDEs, however, are entirely man-made.
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Roger, I have messaged you.
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If you're interested Roger, I wrote a bryophyte report from Anglesey Abbey which might amuse you.
Sphaerocarpos michelii found there with spores shed in tetrads with two male and two female. The males (red arrows) are markedly smaller than the females.
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Sounds like my kind of holiday!
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Nice!
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Perhaps catching vegetative stems of Dock too.
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I've not seen the NL rafts. Do these differ from a floating sedge edge?
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I can imagine that's the main source of recruitment on rivers.
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Where I've seen it increase on rivers is where there has been more recent build-up of silt, again with fast-colonising Glyceria maxima holding the wetter areas. The seeds of R. hydrolapathum need drier ground to germinate.
Dredging & deepening creates abrupt transitions, limiting its opportunities.
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What surprised me was the size of the root, ca 30 cm. In Herts, I usually recorded it as a bankside plant, present in single numbers. However, in permanently flooded habitats, it survives using an aerenchymatous root system (allows gas exchange). A helophyte with a submerged over-wintering rhizome.
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It can sometimes be planted as an ornamental. This might be the case at the farm pond near Little Gaddesden (shown in May) where I went for my walk yesterday. It reaches from edge-to-edge, along with Reed Sweet-grass (Glyceria maxima).