😀

Nice! I believe I can also see Riccia cavernosa, Botrydium granulatum, Vaucheria sp. and Physcomitrium patens in your first photo.

It looks like a population which is producing lots of flowers & likely lots of seed to replenish its seedbank. Compare with last year's Port Meadow population, where it was hard to find a single flower. Yet not quite as prolific as the population I found in Spain. Episodic species are fascinating!

I have a similar restricted geography: N. Iceland and a rural area in Sweden. Originally Venezuelan, I feel completely British and jointly, European.

Botrydium granulatum These are single-celled, multinucleate, yellow-green algae with a rhizoid extension that attaches them to the mud. Its surface can have tiny calcium carbonate crystals. It often forms a flush across damp mud in response to a nutrient pulse associated with drying and rewetting.

Bird gut passage can also enhance germination in some species, potentially crucial when few oospores arrive. This suggests that bird-mediated dispersal and recruitment may sometimes matter more than an existing local spore bank.

Yes, remarkable longevity in some cases! But Schubert et al. (2024) note that survival conditions & species differences remain poorly understood. The capacity to form a long-lived bank doesn’t guarantee one at every site.

Ha! There's a long way to go with this- stats and all that. A busy autumn analysing and writing.

If not, then Fool’s Watercress (Helosciadium nodiflorum) that it lacks bracts:

The leaves appear to have the vicious teeth of Lesser Water-parsnip (Berula erecta). I can't see if it has bracts and bracteoles but it should look like this:

An absolutely stunning place to be in the last days of September.

Dipped into Hatchet Pond this week to see what charophytes were there: stands of Nitella transluscens out beyond the Myriophyllum alterniflorum. In a hidden corner, a strand of Utricularia minor.

My last official plant survey of the season today. The last of the over 140 ponds I visited in England, from Cornwall to Northumberland. Here, finally in Bucks, I ended with Nitella flexilis agg. Another plant, & another new area record. My 4th record for this species in this county this year.

I was in N. Norfolk on Friday & early autumn produced the most exquisite day. Light was soft & colours glowed. Here was just some ordinary Pelia endiviifolia growing in a pond. A pond sited within heath, bordered by Molinia & yet with a chalky base. Just look at the jade beauty of this liverwort!

Which ploidy is present will therefore determine the species mobility. It might be predicted that seeds allow distribution to ponds and headwaters. Bulbils are produced on the rhizomes. Of course these are tendencies. Here is a diploid with bulbils in the inflorescence!

Both native but at different ploidy levels which cause them to function slightly differently. Diploid is fertile ➡️seeds Triploid is infertile ➡️bulbils Bulbils are great for establishment on coarse grade substrates when carried by water= streams & rivers. Seeds for longer dispersal. Think about ponds

Nitellopsis obtusa - just looked it up.