Pterigynandrum filiforme Hedw
AN ADDITION TO THE ‘MONTANE’
BRYOFLORA OF SUFFOLK

Smith (2004) describes the distribution of Pterigynandrum filiforme Hedw. as ‘Boreal-montane’ and says it occurs in montane and northern Europe. The Atlas of Bryophytes of Britain and Ireland shows that the only other recent record from south of the Scottish border is from Westmorland. Its appearance in the lowlands of Suffolk is therefore something of a mystery.

I had been recording in a previously unvisited tetrad in King’s Forest Wordwell to the south of Brandon, at the end of January this year and finding things rather tedious. I had struggled to reach 30 species by lunchtime, and had more or less decided to move elsewhere. However, I thought that a few minutes in an area where there were some beech trees might be well spent. This did add a few records but I then came to an open area with some silver birch and what at first I took to be ash trees. The first tree that I looked at had a small patch of a curious moss with curved thread-like branches. Knowing that Pterogonium gracile (Hedw.) Sm. had been recorded in the early 1900s from Icklingham, just three miles away, I at once assumed that I had re-found that species and it was only later that its true identity was revealed. Subsequently the tree on which it was growing turned out to be a species of acer, as yet to be identified. Forest Enterprise records show only that the area was planted with mixed broadleaf trees in 1955.

Whilst I was still under the impression that I had re-found Pterogonium, I obtained permission from the Elveden estate to visit the site of the old record at Icklingham. It was reported as occurring on the base of a poplar. There are some very old black poplars still at the site and it was undoubtedly on one of them that the Pterogonium had been found. There is no sign of it now, and the bark of the trees is so dry, hard and deeply furrowed that I could find no moss of any sort.

Two adjacent trees (of the same Acer sp.) had numerous tufts of the moss Orthotrichum straminium Hornsch. ex Brid., that was also new to VC26. O. lyellii Hook & Tayl. was abundant on another tree as was the liverwort Metzgeria furcata (L.) Dumort. Another noteworthy liverwort, Lophocolea semiteres (Lehm.) Mitt. was present in the same area, so I ended up with quite an interesting list.

 
 References
 
  Hill M.O., Preston C.D., & Smith A.J.A. 1994. Atlas of the bryophytes of Britain and Ireland volume 3 Mosses (Diplolepideae) Harley Books

Smith A.J.E. 2004. The moss flora of Britain and Ireland 2^nd ed. CUP, Cambridge

Martin Sanford has identified the Acer as Acer negundo.