After a gap of three years I wanted to re-visit Ferring Rife. Predictably, on a cool early June day after rainy weather, I got waylaid by bryophytes between Goring-by-Sea station and the Rife and didn’t reach the marshy area I was aiming for.
A trudge along an endless road of large front gardens and bungalows added Marchantia polymorpha, in its 21st century habitat of cracks between grey bricks on driveways paved over for car parking. (I also found masses growing between older red bricks by the tea rooms at Sussex Prairie Garden a few days later). There was Bryum dichotomum and Schistidium crassipilum too and Syntrichia montana on a brick wall.
A little wiggle led to the old village of Ferring centred around a little churchyard. Rhytidiadelphus squarrosus dominated the turf and gravestones were feathered with Hypnum cupressiforme var. cupressiforme and var. lacunosum. Hypnum cupressiforme was so feathered that it resembled Homalothecium sericeum but on closer inspection the leaves were curved and lacked a nerve so I wasn’t able to record this common moss of churchyards.
A shaded corner was promising as there were dank steps leading to a basement door, just the place to find a variety of bryophytes and look suspicious on security cameras! A vertical wall was green and damp with Fissidens gracilifolius, Lunularia cruciata, Rhynchostegiella tenella and Oxyrhynchium hians. The horizontal concrete that can be seen in the photo was covered in Didymodon sinuosus and Calliergonella cuspidata and Lophocolea bidentata replaced grass in the darkest corners.
Back in the sun, there was a silvery smudge of Bryum argenteum on a drive and Dicranoweissia cirrata on a wooden fence.
A circuitous route took me to Ferring Rife and I joined it just by the one bridge that leads to the other side. I had planned to visit the area of ponds but checked a corner of arable field then headed north to a small wooded area and pond and ran out of time. The footpath followed a shaded brook but as it was the first wild bit near the village it was messed up by dogs so, apart from a bit of Pellia endiviifolia on the stream bank, I just recorded a few eye height epiphytes.
Tetrad TQ00W now has 53 bryophyte species recorded from a start of 36.
A week later in similar cool, windy weather I cycled down to the seafront and entered Ferring Rife from the south. The lagoon areas seemed scruffier than when I last visited in June 2021 and the orchids rather weedy. As in 2021 the dominant moss was Calliergonella cuspidata but The other bryophytes spotted were different. Fresh anthills were growing by the path and one had Bryum rubens and Dicranella varia. Pseudoscleropodium purum nestled in a shady corner and Rhynchostegium confertum wrapped the base of a hawthorn. Lunularia cruciata clung to a bank in the copse. these common mosses were all new to the tetrad but only grew in tiny quantities.
A drying out pond was edged with a thick brown mat of Drepanocladus aduncus. I had found a similar looking moss by the bridge the previous week. The alar cells are elusive on the bridge sample but obvious on the more robust pond sample but otherwise the plants looks just the same. There are just 25 tetrads scattered across Sussex with records of this moss including two from nearby Bognor.
In the next area Fissidens adianthoides was stuffed into the damp earth. There was plenty of this and I don’t know how I missed it in 2021, though this time I didn’t see Bryum pseudotriquetrum which was easily spotted last time.
I squeezed through a thick hedge to the edge of a cornfield finding Lunularia cruciata on the shaded ground and Rhynchostegium confertum on Hawthorn, both new for the tertrad.
Trying to find a way back out of the wet area I added Brachythecium rivulare from wet woodland then headed back through the quiet streets of Ferring, passing shops selling buckets and spades, all hoping for a hot summer.
TQ00V now has 46 species recorded from a start of 23 so two squares can turn green.
Sussex Bryophytes 