Coffee Break Finds

A surprisingly rich few metres of track edge

I stopped to make some coffee whilst surveying cotoneaster around Mynachlog-ddu last week. Whilst the kettle was boiling, I crawled along the edge of a track near the entrance to the former forestry at Coed Llwyn-drain. I'd found the first Bryoerythrophyllum ferruginascens in Pembs lower down the track a couple of years ago, but the nice mossy ground here has all been destroyed by recent forestry works. The first Didymodon icmadophilus for the north of the county was a good start, and I collected some Dicranella which proved to be subulata - only two other county sites, one of which is near the top of the Preseli ridge not too far away. Prize find, however, was Ditrichum pusillum which I've been looking out for without success for a while. This is Nationally Rare, and most or all records in Wales are old - there doesn't seem to be much here, so hopefully it will escape the fate of the Bryoerythrophyllum. 

I'll admit the kettle was whistling a bit when I got back to it......

Ditrichum pusillum leaf tips