New British moss at Bone Caves
On 6th April 2019, Gordon Rothero, Gwen Richards and I visited the Bone Caves and, later, a sinkhole which gives access to the famous cave system of Uamh na Claonaite (see ‘To the Bone Caves and beyond’ from May 2019).
One of Gordon’s objectives that day was to check a site for the tiny montane moss Encalypta alpina, which grows in a crevice on one limestone boulder on the north-facing slope below the Creag nan Uamh (NC2617). It is an isolated locality for this rarity, which usually occurs on base-rich rocks at medium to high altitudes. Unfortunately the weather that spring had been so dry that he was unable to re-find it.
However, he did collect from nearby a few strands of another moss, which he did not recognise at the time. This was eventually confirmed as another montane species, Microhypnum sauteri, which had not previously been found in the British Isles.
He and I returned to the site on 28th September 2019, a squally day, with heavy showers of rain. On that occasion he was able, with some difficulty, to locate the Encalypta alpina (photo 1), and both the original site and a second one for the Microhypnum sauteri.
Gordon’s later paper in the Journal of Bryology, ‘Microhypnum sauteri (Schimp.) Jan Kučera & Ignatov in West Sutherland, new to the British flora’ tells the story of the discovery.
Ian M. Evans