A Good Week

We explored a practically unrecorded tetrad on the Black Mountain last week. The route from where we parked had a lot of good things that could not be completely ignored so it took us until 1230 to enter the area of interest. 

This shows where most of us explored - the river (Afon Gwys) providing the most interest.

Meanwhile intrepid Stephen descended into the steep Afon Giedd valley to explore places like this:

Afon Giedd entering its gorge.

A good haul of records was obtained and both common Cotton-grasses were seen with Hare's-tail Cotton-grass being the most abundant:

Hare's-tail Cottongrass near the Afon Gwys Fawr

Then I heard that Hairy Greenweed (Genista pilosa) was flowering at Ogof Ffynnon Ddu on the limestone pavement. This seems to be a rare occurrence so three of us went there on Friday to check it out. The species is quite rare in the UK with relatively strong populations in Cornwall and Pembrokeshire and only a few other isolated sites in the whole country. (Cadair Idris hosts it also in Wales.) So our population is quite important. We found five patches in all growing and flowering strongly.

Hairy Greenweed (Genista pilosa)