BBS members getting stuck in to the marl pits at the joint Wessex/Southern Group meeting to Marlborough Deeps in the New Forest. Highlights include the uncommon calcicole of wet places Kandaea elodes.

I’ve driven past this interesting looking mossy patch on a planted ash tree on a roundabout in central Trowbridge many times but finally took a closer look today. Sure enough, Leucodon sciuroides, not usually found in very polluted places like this, not in my area anyway.

Lovely Blysmus compressus at Market Weston Fen. Definitely a hands and knees jobbie there.

Lovely to meet @notfrangible.bsky.social @pilkyplant.bsky.social @botanykaren.bsky.social plus Kat & other members of the Wilts. Bot. Soc. 'on location' at Market Weston Fen yesterday along with lots of lovely plants! I found Carex muricata pairae after heading back into the swamp to locate David :)

When pottering about on the Somerset coast yesterday I came across a brackish rhyne with lots of wild celery (Apium graveolens) and parsley water-dropwort (Oenanthe lachenalii) growing together. It's still too early for flowers, but very nice.

And breathe….one way to put the scary/nasty stuff happening in the world to the back of my mind for a little while…

I was very privileged to see hundreds of early spiders out in their natural habitat yesterday. I'm no orchidophile, but I was unable to resist the charms of these little beauties.

The slime trail on this Herzogiella seligeri suggests a hungry slug or snail has been making a meal of those plump young capsules.

Today, we bryologised atop Feldberg, Germany's highest (after the Alps..) mountain at 1400m. Many wonderful species, with Ptychostomum (Bryum) schleicheri and Bryum weigelii looking particularly sensational.
- BBS spring meeting in the Black Forest
@bbsbryology.bsky.social

My son sent this picture of a sign at the Temple of Saiho-ji in Kyoto. Makes a nice change from "Keep off the Grass".

First day of the BBS meeting in the Schwarzwald region of southern Germany - moss highlight for me was luxorious Rhytidium rugosum in the chalk grassland
@bbsbryology.bsky.social

An excellent meeting of the Wessex Bryology Group on Exmoor last weekend turned up some nice liverworts, including some putative Jungermannia eucordifolia in a stream. If confirmed, it would be a new species for SW England @bbsbryology.bsky.social

Sphagnum fallax var isoviitae #moss #bryophyte

Sphagnum divinum and cuspidatum #moss #bryophyte

We had a great (wet) day with the BBS Irish Bryophyte Group on Saturday. The morning in Ravensdale Forest where Jubula hutchinsiae is abundant in the gorge and afternoon at Long Woman's Grave, with Braunia imberbis on nearly every gabro boulder and occasional cushions of Glyphomitrium daviesii.