Surveying up Craggan

 I have mentioned before that I do annual surveys for the National Plant Monitoring Scheme so I thought it was time to get on with this year's surveys. Three of the squares that I monitor are on Craggan, two in boggy areas and one in the birch wood. The bog cotton was out and made a lovely  display.

There weren't many wildflowers but there were other plants that are typical of moorland.  One is a grass called Mat-grass (Nardus stricta) which looks like a clump of black needles.

A clump of Mat-grass

It is a perennial grass and comes back every year.  Last year's growth is the white strands at the base. Once the grass heads open they no longer look like needles but remind me of fish bones.

Another "non-flower" that you find in wet places is Black Sedge (Carex nigra).  It actually does have a flower but not with petals that you get on most wildflowers. Instead there are two sorts of spikes, the male ones at the top  that produce pollen and the female ones lower down that produce the seeds.

2 stalks of Black Sedge

The next site I monitor was already occupied by a red deer, probably a 1 year old stag looking at the antlers.  It was not keen to move but lumbered off when I got closer.

The third site was not particularly interesting, but there was an interesting rock outcrop nearby that I took a look at as I had checked it out a few years ago and knew it had an interesting lichen called Peltigera brittanica. It looks like green speckled leaves, and is not very common.

The rock outcrop

Peltigera brittanica

There were a couple more interesting lichens on the rock that resemble corals - they are both Sphaerophorus species and to distinguish between them, you have to look at  the thickness of the "stalks" when they branch. If they stay the same width when they branch, it is S. fragilis, but if they get thinner as they branch, it is S. globosus.

Sphaerophorus globosus (on left) and Sphaerophorus fragilis on right

Finally, a wildflower!  This is Bog Stitchwort (Stellaria alsine) which I found on the way back.  It is tiny and, as you might expect, grows in boggy places.

A sticky business and an unexpected find

Twice a year I survey a few plots for the NPMS (National Plant Monitoring Scheme). All my plots are in the 1 km x 1 km square which has the Grid Reference NN7199 - which is handy as it is the square I live in.  I was up behind Craggan yesterday, looking at one of the plots which is on a boggy bit of moor.  The most obvious plant is bog cotton (Eriophorum vaginatum) which has fluffy white seedheads that wave around in the wind. This one is Hare's-tail Cottongrass.

Bog cotton or cottongrass

The wet areas have a carpet of sphagnum moss.  Look carefully at the picture below and you can see the moss in the centre. look even more carefully and you can see some red patches. Sphagnum can be red, but in this case the red patches are a different tiny plant.

Sphagnum moss and...?

Getting onto your knees and peering is the only way to see what it is. They are tiny, as the photo with my finger shows.

This is the leaf of a sundew (Drosera rotundifolia) which grows in wet nutrient-poor places and captures extra food by digesting flies which get caught on the sticky droplets. I didn't notice when I took the photo but there is a fly caught on this one. The green  oval coming from the centre of the leaves is the flower bud.

They are very beautiful in their tiny way, so I took lots of photos (using a clip on macro lens on my phone).

On the way home I went past a mossy rock face at the back of Craggan.

  I wasn't intending to look for lichens but I couldn't resist investigating.  I was glad I did as I found  a lichen I had never seen before.  It was minty green with black spots.

It turned out to be Peltigera brittanica which is found in Scotland  but not elsewhere in the UK. The edges are turned up and remind me of a poppadom. Here is a close up which gives a better idea of the colour. 

It grows browner when dry, and a much brighter green when wet and grows on mossy acidic rocks in moist woodland, which is exactly where I found it.

A bit more from the A9

In the last post, I went to look for what was flowering along the A9, but much to my surprise I found that there were some unexpected lichens as well. Because the new part of the A9 near the Wildlife park has been built through woodland, there are still some older trees.  There was a group of old aspens that I looked at.

Aspens by the A9

The ecological survey before building the road must have checked these trees as two of them had a metal disc with a number attached - presumably to protect them from workmen with a chainsaw!

There were woodland plants like Wood Anemone and Common Dog Violet in the grass, but I wanted to see what lichens there were.  On a fallen log was a lichen I had never seen before.

It looked like a series of dark brown lobes (leaves) with some lighter brown structures that look a bit like fingernails  (they are apothecia - the spore producing parts).  Looking more closely, there were lots of little peglike growths as well (they are called isidia and are another way a lichen can spread).

"Fingernails" (out of focus) and the tiny pegs (isidia)

The lichen turned out to be Peltigera praetextata and it was growing on the trunk of a live tree as well.

I had never seen that Peltigera before, but there is a common one that grows in lawns, or on grassy or mossy surfaces:

Peltigera membranacea

It will prefer lawns that don't receive too much care in the form of weedkillers and fertilisers.  A benefit of a bit of neglect! As it is No Mow May again,  I am hoping some wildflowers will appear in my lawn soon. The lawn a few doors down from me has a nice show of Slender Speedwell (Veronica filiformis.)

For more on Speedwells check this post. 

The common name for the Peltigera group is Dog lichen. They have little projections underneath that look like dog's teeth so in the past they thought it would cure rabies.