Bryophyte Club

It snowed again overnight, meaning most plantlife was covered and I didn't much fancy my chances finding inverts. So I decided to have another look at woodland tree trunks in search of the Fairy Beads that I failed to locate yesterday. I needed to grab some food, so hit the co-op in Portree and figured I'd check the woods a mile or so away whilst in the area. But before that I dropped in to Bayfield to check the gull flock. No white-wingers yet (though they're turning up along the Outer Hebs now, so it won't be long until we get some here), and then I made a tit of myself.

There's a bit of a steep slope down into Bayfield and upon trying to leave all I managed to do was wheelspin in the snow and slide backwards. I tried again, with a bit more welly this time, and slid backwards once again. Shite. I then took a pretty serious run up and still failed to reach the top. Just then Neil the postman turned up, checking the gulls for a white-winger would you believe. Neil is ace, he knows every road, track and alleyway on Skye. "Drive down that path, it leads into the main car park and you'll make it up the exit slope I'm sure" was his advice. So yeah, I drove down the path and escaped out the car park. Good knowledge Neil! 

I headed for the woodland behind Cuillin Hills Hotel and soon headed off the path and into the wilds.

'The wilds'

Ok, so it's unlikely to harbour wolves, bison or moose, but this is Portree after all. And I was after liverworts on tree trunks, not wolves. I quite fancied my chances. A surprisingly short while later and...

This is a colony of Microlejeunea ulicina, otherwise known as Fairy Beads

Microlejeunea ulicina is tiny but quite easy to recognise once you manage to spot it. However, there are a couple of lookalike liverworts, so I collected this sample to check it properly beneath the microscope once back indoors. I had a check of various trunks, finding a good number of liverwort and moss species. Sadly I had no idea what most of them were, I'm really pretty weak on bryophyte identification. I recognised the warty perianths of Frullania dilatata, that's a ubiquitous species up here and one that I do know. I grabbed a brownish Frullania and popped it in a pot, could be one of two or three species and again I'd need the microscope to tell. 

I restricted myself to collecting just one other liverwort species. Any more than about three or four samples and I tend to lose the will to live. In small enough doses I can just about handle them. But first, I needed to check those Fairy Beads beneath the microscope.

Confirmed as Microlejeunea ulicina due to the presence of bilobed underleaves

I think I'm right in saying that this is Britain's smallest liverwort. The Frullania was substantially larger and yet gave me more of a run around than the Fairy Beads had due to what initially appeared to be conflicting features. Frullania stems are covered with flattened overlapping leaves, so that from above you can't see the stem at all. On the stem itself are a further set of leaves, cunningly known as underleaves. These underleaves are notched and the depth of the notch varies between the species. Coupled with this are the colour of the main leaves and the presence or absence of enlarged oil cells in them. These oil cells can be scattered, may briefly form a row, or may be present as a strong line. My underleaves said Frullania tamarisci which has a curved row of oil cells running across the leaf surface. Except the leaves didn't have any oil cells, never mind in a row. Eventually, I found some leaves exhibiting the required row of oil cells. Why are liverworts so bloomin' difficult, even a supposedly easy genus was giving me stress palpitations!

It took me a long while to find those rows of oil cells. I couldn't see others on further leaves

The final sample that I took back for microscopic examination was quite easy to suss thanks to a very obvious confirmatory feature - a whacking big band of colourless cells running along the length of the leaf, nice! 

This is Diplophyllum albicans, a common liverwort and one that I've seen before

I soaked the Diplophyllum albicans in water, seeing as it had shrivelled up whilst in transit. Then I popped it onto a microscope slide and squished it beneath a coverslip, the results are the images above. I don't much care for the air bubbles (or the background), but I can see about making a better job of it next time. 

Shit, did I just say next time? Oh dear. Er, I mean oh yay!

My PSL for the year is coming along pretty well. I'm up to 253 species compared with Ghostie's 114 species. Of course that means nothing, he pulls the tortoise and hare trick every year and always wins. Let's see if I run out of steam too early this year. I still fancy my chances (considering it's day 3 out of 365...)