A bryophyte wall in Silverdale

Thank goodness for bryophytes! For a large part of the year they bring the majority of colour to the countryside.

This photo is from North Wales and illustrates well the colour bryophytes bring to a winter woodland.

Here is a typical bryophyte wall in Silverdale, north Lancashire. I can't put a name to them all yet, but there is a large diversity of bryophytes on every wall. Below is a sample of the species I found. Other species which I found but neglected to photograph include the liverworts Marchesinia mackaii MacKay's pouncewort and Plagiochila porelloides bfid crestwort.

Thuidium Tamariscinum common tamarisk-moss.

I'm fairly certain that this is Ctenidium molluscum comb moss, except that my book says it only rarely has captules. This clearly has a few. Perhaps I just got lucky.....

Neckera crispa crisped neckera.

Atrichum undulatum common smoothcap.

Calliergonella cuspidata pointed spear-moss.

The liverwort Plagiochilla porelloides lesser featherwort.

Wild daffodils Narcissus pseudonarcissus. Regular readers will know just how much I love the daffodil family, I've seen some crackers across Europe, notably in the Picos de Europa mountains of Spain here and more recently in Cyprus here and here. The problem in the UK is that there are so many garden escapes or deliberate planting of non-native species, that it's actually quite difficult at times to know if you're looking at a wild plant or not. However, wild daffodils have pale yellow flowers with a darker central trumpet and grey green leaves, and are more beautiful than most garden plants.

Snowdrops Galanthus nivalis