Monkstone - Waterwynch

Bryum cf. gemmiparum

There are a couple of small bays between Waterwynch and Monkstone, north of Tenby, which are only accessible for an hour or two on the lowest spring tides. I only managed five minutes poking about whilst on a family walk there last week, but it was long enough to collect an interesting looking Bryum from wet ledges on the mudstone cliffs at the back of one bay. No camera with me so no in situ photos, but the cushions look exactly like the B. gemmiparum photographs in Michael Luth's flora. The leaves are a good fit too, with the same snub-nosed apex, and a wide costa (99 microns) at the leaf base. Unfortunately no bulbils on the tuft that I collected, so it remains to be seen how it will be refereed ('looks interesting but can't be confirmed without bubils' - Sharon), but I think Bryum alpinum is ruled out on costa width amongst other characters.

I went back a couple of days later, but the tides were no longer big enough for easy access. I went round to the Saundersfoot end of the beach instead, where a new sub-population of Philonotis rigida - the seventh on this section of cliffs - was some compensation.

Cushions of Bryum pseudotriquetrum and Amphidium here 

have scattered tufts of Philonotis rigida

Cemaes Head

There's a lovely little flush on the south side of Cemaes Head in north Pembs, over a slippage where a stream meets the cliff top. It's about as natural as a habitat gets around here. I'd recorded a good population of Didymodon spadiceus amongst the abundant Philonotis fontana here around three years ago, but a revisit this week revealed that I'd missed the single small patch of Philonotis rigida on one small rock. This rarity must be a good colonist of such habitats, relying on periodic erosion events, and I suppose it's just possible that it had colonised in the meantime. There's a small population in a similarly isolated flush on the cliffs south of Moylgrove, a few kilometres down the coast. 

Philonotis rigida

I'd definitely missed the Nardia compressa on my last visit, the red patches of which were prominent on flushed rock a little higher up. The few other county records are on Mynydd Preseli and Rosebush quarry. 

Nardia compressa is on the flushed rock here

A jumble of shale boulders higher up the slope had a few small tufts of Grimmia montana, which I was particularly pleased to find, as I've never been able to locate the single tuft that Sam found on the south coast near Monkstone Point. His flora entry says that "remarkably, Campylopus pilifer grew on the same rock". Even more remarkably, Campylopus pilifer grew on my rock too, and both finds were on the same date, just 15 years apart.

This dry boulder top has Campylopus pilifer, and, just out of shot, some Grimmia montana