Green Spleenwort - Asplenium Viride - Normal and Different!!

Thursday 26th November 2015 - Dalton Crags and Hutton Roof Common

I set off again today to see if by any chance the Great Grey Shrike had returned, but I searched everywhere in his normal haunts without any success. In fact very little in the way of birdlife other than a roving party of about 15 Fieldfare and later another party of approx 30 birds. A single Stonechat up near the gully in Dalton deforested.  And some Goldcrest were heard near the Trig point.

So I thought its time I checked out the Green Spleenwort populations at G3 and I counted eight separate populations (one population up on 2014). But for some reason my eye caught one particular group which did seem to have different fronds to the others and also the pinnae and sori looked different.  You can see from the photos below there is a clear difference.

Green Spleenwort - asplenium viride  (Click over to enlarge)
1) top: Green Spleenwort - normal, 2) middle: Green Spleenwort with a difference  3) closeby within one metre Maidenhair Spleenwort (asplenium trichomanes)

It was necessary for me to give the items more exposure than I would have liked but it was the only way in which I could express the light and at the same time keep out any shadow.

Green Spleenwort - asplenium viride - rear frond (Click over to enlarge)
1) top: Green Spleenwort - normal,  2) middle: Green Spleenwort with a difference, 3 bottom:  closeby within one metre Maidenhair Spleenwort.  It was necessary for me to give the items more exposure than I would have liked but it was the only way in which I could express the light and at the same time keep out any shadow.