An Aquatics Weekend

On Friday, The Skye Botany Group went to Loch Duagrich. Four 10 km squares meet in the middle of this loch giving lots of opportunities for useful recording. Nick was needing bryophyte records in tetrads NG33Z and NG43E, whilst I was keen to obtain the first post-1999 records in NG43E and NG44A and also to re-find some aquatics that had been recorded there before, notably Elatine hexandra (Six-stamened Waterwort) for which there were no post-1999 records on Skye.

The eastern end of the loch was so good that it was well after lunch before we started to move on towards NG43 and we never got to NG44. There was plenty of the diminutive Elatine hexandra and with it there was Subularia aquatica (Awlwort).

On Saturday I went to the three lochs one of which, but presumably not all three, is called Lochan na Saile, off the Broadford to Kylerhea road and found both these species again. I circumnavigated all three lochs, a distance of a little over 4 km, and found two small patches of Subularia, one of which also had Elatine.

Elatine hexandra

Subularia aquatica (plus a little Elatine)

On Friday we spotted this fungus, which I think is Common Eyelash (Scutellinia scutellata)

Common Eyelash

so called because of the hairs on the edge of the fruiting body:

Eyelashes

The NBN shows no records for this in VC104 but Richard Dennis in his Fungi of the Hebrides (1986) lists it for Skye.

There is a 1988 record for Lycopodium clavatum (Stag’s-horn Clubmoss) “west of the Luidag burn” in NG43E which we didn’t re-find, but the gorge of this burn looks worth a return visit, perhaps when I pick up NG44A.

Luidag burn

On Saturday there was lots of pink Succisa pratensis (Devil’s-bit Scabious)

Pink Succisa pratensis

and some white Calluna

Lucky White Calluna

Two things I do not expect to find flowering in mid-September, but did yesterday:

Eleocharis palustris (Common Spike-rush)

Vaccinium vitis-idaea (Cowberry)

Tags: Fungi, Plants