Dean Mac Cú Uladh

Happy to see my two unis Aberystwyth and Queen’s Belfast got through the first round of BUC!

The yellow flowers of American Skunk-cabbage bloom in the bog garden at RHS Harlow Carr

Sea Bindweed, with pink and white trumpet flowers, blooms in a sand-dune on the Sefton Coast

The latest issue of #BritishandIrishBotany is out!
It's our Open Access, online scientific journal.
6 papers inc @bsbiscience.bsky.social on garden escapes, a new hybrid grass, @floodplainmead.bsky.social on Scotland's wet grasslands, a hawkweed, drift seeds & sea bindweed:
bsbi.org/about/news/l...

In Carlingford, Co. Louth**

Porella platyphylla from the mortared walls of the promenade in Co. Louth. Appears to be a first for the Cooley Peninsula and the first record of the liverwort from the county in a few decades!

@bbsbryology.bsky.social

Photo of a moss plant that’s light green in colour. The moss plant is largely covered in a bright orange slime mold that looks like hundreds of tiny grapes all bunched together along the length of the moss plant.

Slime mold on moss. NWT, Canada.
#myxomycete #fungifriends #moss

The lovely liverwort Plagiochila spinulosa growing in there too!

A small leafy liverwort on a twig

A rowan tree in the foreground covered in epiphytes with conifers behind

Feathery green moss on a rock

A boulder stream with conifers on the banks

Colura calyptrifolia on rowan and plentiful Hyocomium armoricum on granite boulders at Yellow Water, Rostrevor, Co. Down

How amazing would this place be if it had some native woodland? Missed opportunity for restoration

Thug mé cuairt Uaimh Thalún na Fionnaise agus Liagán Áine, Co. An Dúin inniú

Tá an uaimh 29m ar fhad - iontach suntasach

Bhí na radharcanna ó Liagán Áine dochreidte, agus na Beanna Boirche ó dheas. Ainmníodh é i ndéidh Bandia an tSamhraidh, Áine

This is an amazing record if this rare fungi that is closely linked to temperate rainforest. Not before observed in the SE of Ireland!! Wow

That’s amazing! Definitely record it somewhere because that’s really interesting!!

Wow Donna! Is this a known site? I wasn’t aware of it being in the southeast

Scapania ornithopoides. Céad uair agam an speiceas seo a fheiceail agus an chéad suíomh dhó sna Mám Toirce cé go bhfuil roinnt maith cuntais dhó ó na beanna beola. Rud aláinn a bhfaca mé fhéin agus @timoceallaigh.bsky.social lá oíche nollaig

New site record of Hymenophyllum tunbrigense for Co. Louth (H31) growing in a rocky woodland on a minor hill. Happy to find this one today. A very scarce species in the county.

@bsbiireland.bsky.social
@bsbibotany.bsky.social

#ferns #botany #filmyferns

Maith thú! Ba bhreá liom é seo a amharc

Likely Rhabdoweisia crenulata growing at high altitude on a NE rock face. Another first for me and the maamturks/Mám toirce records it seems. Thanks @nimbosaecology.bsky.social for ID help

Dryopteris affinis s.s on my St Stephen’s Day walk yesterday. Every day is a good day for some fernology

I am pretty confident with this one

@bsbiireland.bsky.social @bsbibotany.bsky.social

#ferns #botany

Chonaic mé é ar fhuinseog, cuileann, caorann agus darach fosta, ag úsáid craobhóga coill fós, creidim

Fontinalis squamosa from Bavan, Cooley Mountains, Co. Louth in upland boulder stream

Doesn’t seem to be previously recorded from this region

@bbsbryology.bsky.social

Close up photo of a moss plant that appears to be decorated like a tree, with black bulbs (slime mold sporangia)

Mosses love to decorate with slime molds. Northwest Territories, Canada.
#slime #fungifriends #myxo #moss #bryophyte #botany

November - Bazzania trilobata

This was a lovely large liverwort of humid woodland to find for the first time and marks the best find for November. Ness Country Park in Derry was really productive for temperate rainforest species and will be worth returning to.

October - Lobaria pulmonaria

A visit to northwest Donegal was productive for finding the lovely lungwort. This site had good populations of it, and other old-growth lichens which were nice to see for the first time too.

September - Daltonia splachnoides

This was the month I came across Irish Daltonia and was over the moon. I found it first in Monaghan and then in Antrim, which were first records for those counties. I’ve subsequently found it in a few other places!

August - Asplenium ceterach

Another fern, rustyback from southwest co. Armagh. A common fern but it’s always evaded me. A very distinctive and charismatic species and one I was happy to find on an old mortared wall.

July - Vandenboschia speciosa

I did loads of temperate rainforest surveying this month so this was difficult. But seeing Killarney Fern sporophyte in a cove in Fermanagh was probably the most exciting. I could make many posts about all the species I found in our rainforests!

June - Anacamptis pyramidalis

This was my first time seeing this stunning orchid in Ireland & after getting a hint of its presence via word of mouth on a roadside west of Ardee town, Co. Louth, I had to find it. A few plants were found at the corner of a t-junction & I was chuffed all together!

May - Pamphilius gyllenhali

This was a hard one but I’ll settle on this very scarce sawfly with only 5 previous records in Ireland. I found it in a mixed woodland site SW of Newry. Its larvae feed on willow species & adults are distinctively black & yellow and robust. This day was v successful

April - Orchis mascula

My first time coming across Early-purple Orchid, here at its only extant south Co. Down location, just before it bloomed. This orchid should be much more common than it is. I’m grateful to have seen it. The path that it is on is also ancient & has other interesting wildlife

March - Cheilosia grossa

This large and distinctive hoverfly is an early season species and I am lucky enough to have found it at a few local places this year. It can be found feeding on willow and is generally quite rare. This one was found in a reed marsh north of my hometown

February - Rana temporaria

Feb wasn’t the most productive month but coming across a huge population of frogs in this upland pond on Camlough Mountain was by far the most memorable. I have never seen so many frogs in one place and the noise was amazing. A humble creature

To round up my year of biological recording, here are my favourite finds from each month of 2025!

January - Jubula hutchinsiae

I re-found this colony recorded in 2004 in the Glen Stream, co. Down. A v interesting & unmistakable oceanic liverwort of humid wooded stream valleys