Celtic rain forest

The Celtic rain forest is the wet forest in western Wales, western Scotland, and Ireland, near the Atlantic Ocean, which is dominated by sessile oak (Quercus petraea), downy birch (Betula pubescens) and hazel (Corylus avellana). The large number of rainy or misty days, high humidity, overall high annual precipitation, and small annual temperature variation (equable temperature), makes this an important habitat numerous common and rare species of mosses, liverworts, and lichens.[1][2][3][4] There is an exceptional number of epiphytic plants (plants growing on or hanging from trees without being parasitic.[1] The ground is covered with a deep blanketing of mosses and liverworts, which rise up the trunks of the trees onto the horizontal branches and up into the canopy.[1]

The Scottish Natural History Scientific Advisory Committee writes, "the whole area is a lichenologists’ Mecca".[1]

Diversity and taxa

Ravines are full of tangled vegetation.[1]

Trees

Trees include oaks, ash, elm, cherry, and willow.[1]

Lichens

Rare lichen communities are found using the mosses as a substrate, and add colour to the understory.[1] Lungworts are lichens in the Lobaria genus, and four of the species can be huge, up to .3 metres (0.98 ft) or more across. Pannaria, Parmeliella, and Degeliaspecies genus lichens add a lead-grey color.[1] Stictas genus lichens are very dark. The fruit of jelly lichens (Biatora sphaeroides) are pink, those of Dimerella lutea are bright yellow, and those of dog lichen in the Peltigera genus make chestnut colored fruits in the shape of shields.[1] The weight of the lichens using mosses as a substrate gradually causes the moss carpeting to peel off the trees, where heaps rare lichens can be found on the ground.[1]

The more alkaline bark of ash and hazel favour growth specklebellies (Pseudocyphellaria spp.), custard (Parmentaria chilense).[1]

In the grazed birch woodland on higher ground, the bark has a high acidity due to leaching by the high rainfall. This area is dominated by silvery-grey leafy species of lichens that grow directly on the tree bark, not on mosses.[1]

Historic human use, conservation, and preservation

Historically wood from this forest was gathered by repeatedly cutting down the tree stems to near the ground coppiced), where it resprouted.[1] The wood was used for charcoal, tanning, and bobbin-making. These practices ended in the mid-1800s. There is currently wildland management for conservation.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Important habitats for lichens, The Celtic rain forest, Scottish Natural Heritage online,
  2. ↑ Lichen Glossary, Allen Silverside
  3. ↑ Atlantic Hazelwoods: the case for conservation of a newly-recognised woodland type, Scottish Natural heritage Scientific Advisory Committee, 3-20-2014,
  4. ↑ Atlantic hazel: Scotland’s special woodlands, A. M. Coppins, B. J. Coppins, Atlantic Hazel Action Group: Kilmartin, UK, 2012
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