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