Linda and Roger's Bunhybee Grasslands - Cryptogams

This is a page within Roger and Linda's Bunhybee Grasslands Web-Site.
Bunhybee Grasslands is a 49 hectare / 120 acre conservation property 35km south of Braidwood, in southern N.S.W.
You can follow through the internal links, or you may find it easier to use the Site-Map.

Lists of the plant species found on the property have been broken into:

  1. (Small) Flowering Plants
  2. Trees and Shrubs
  3. Grasses
  4. Cryptogams (this page, published only from 1 October 2020 onwards)

This page covers anything that fits poorly under the other three headings. Biology has trouble providing a simple heading or explanations for 'the rest'. Other terms that are used include 'Forgotten Flora' and 'Non-Vascular Plants and Fungi'.

Another explanation is that a Cryptogam (from the Greek for 'hidden reproduction') is that which reproduces by spores rather than flowers and seeds. (A spore is a minute biological cell that can develop into a new organism without the need for fusion of biological material from two sources).

See the NSW RNBG's paper on the topic. See also Canberra Nature Map on Mosses, Lichens, Liverworts, etc., which is about bryophytes and leaves out the ferns, but may include fungi (not least because a lichen is a co-habitation of fungus and algae). 'The snark was a boojum, you see', i.e. classifications across the whole cryptogam arena are a complete nightmare.

Here is the set of categories we're using, currently showing 11 identified species. Once we're aware that we have at least one species on Bunhybee, we open up a section:

Within each section, this page provides any species information that we've managed to establish with some degree of confidence, followed by photos of as-yet-unidentified species in date order.

Legend:

Cross-Hatch (#): Species added by us to the list originally provided by NCT

FC = Frequency Code / Abundance: Rp/c = rare patches or clumps < 3 patches with < 10 plants per patch, R = Rare at site (< 3 plants), O = Occasional (<5% cover), Ip/c = intermittent patches or clumps, I = intermittent/subdominant, F = frequent/dominant

For larger images, click on the thumbnails.

Ferns

Here's ANBG's Introduction to Ferns.

Scientific Name
Image
Common Name
Photo Links
FC
Adiantum aethiopicum
Maidenhair Fern APII PlantNet R/p
Asplenium flabellifolium
Necklace Fern Us APII APII PlantNet R
# Blechnum sp. (? wattsii)
Hard Water Fern Us APII Plantnet  
# Cheilanthes austrotenuifolia
A rock-fern Us Us Us Us Us Us Us Us PlantNet  
# Pteridium esculentum
Bracken Fern Us Us Us Us Us APII ANBG PlantNet  

Fungi

The category Fungi includes not only mushrooms (and 'toadstools'), but also mildews, moulds and yeasts, and rusts and smuts. There are about 144,000 species.

Fungi differ from plants in that they lack chlorophyll and have different cellular structures. They differ from animals in that they grow from the tips of filaments (hyphae) that make up their bodies (mycelia), and digest organic matter externally before absorbing it into their mycelia.

Here's the ANBG page on the topic.

Here's an amateur's introduction.

Here is Canberra Nature Map's page to assist with species identification.

The Far South Coast Conservation Management Network (FSC-CMN) offers 70 photos and a species-name index to them.

Here are photos of 70 species found in central-eastern NSW, and photos of 140 species in Australia.

Scientific Name
Image
Common Name
Photo Links
FC
# Anthurus archeri
Seastar Stinkhorn Fungus Us Us Us Us FungiMap  
# Phallus rubicundus
A Stinkhorn Fungus Us Us Us Us Hunter  

Photos of As-Yet Unidentified Fungi:

Purple Puffball, poss. Calvatia cyathiformis
12 Mar 09

Brown Mushroom, poss. Phylloporus rhodoxanthus
26 Apr 09
26 Apr 09

Brown Mushroom, poss. Suillus luteus or S. granulatus
13 Nov 10

Red Mushroom, poss. Hygrocybe Sp. e.g. coccinea (scarlet hood, scarlet waxcap, red waxy cap)
27 Sep 10
6 Nov 10

Lichens

A lichen, or lichenized fungus, is a composite organism of an alga or a cyanobacterium living among the filaments of a fungus, in a symbiotic relationship. The fungus benefits from the photosynthesis of the alga or cyanobacterium; and the fungus in return provides shelter, particularly from ultraviolet radiation. There are about 17,000 lichen species.

Here's the ANBG page on the topic.

Here is Canberra Nature Map's page to assist with species identification.

And here's an alpha list of species with photos.
Scientific Name
Image
Common Name
Photo Links
FC
# Lichenomphalia chromacea
Yellow navel
Canberra Nature Map FungiMap 		 
# Teloschistes sp.
A lichen
Canberra Nature Map 		 
# Usnea sp.
Poss. Usnea inermis
Old man's beard Canberra Nature Map  

Photos of As-Yet Unidentified Lichens:

White trumpet on Tree
20 Mar 11

Yellow Scale on Bark
25 Sep 13

Grey Leaf on Rock, poss. Xanthoparmelia sp.
25 Sep 13

Grey Flake on Rock
19 Sep 20, not
Cryptothecia scripta

Green Leaf on Ground, poss. Hypogymnia Sp.
12 Mar 11

Green Scale on Rock
25 Sep 13
& why many rocks have
little lichen on top

Green Flake on Tree, poss. Flavoparmelia rutidota or Xanthoparmelia sp.
19 Sep 20

Red Scale on Bark
25 Sep 13, not
Trentepohlia sp.

Red Scale on Rock
19 Sep 20, poss.
Caloplaca Sp.

Bryophytes

Bryophytes encompass Mosses, Liverworts and Hornworts. As ANBG explains, even among the broader category of Cryptogams, they're a weird mob. Most people probably have an impression of soft, spongy grass, and in late 2020, so did Google images; but there are many forms.

I thought we were devoid of Mosses at Bunhbyee, but the intended background to a red fungus blew that theory out of the water.
Scientific Name
Image
Common Name
Photo Links
FC
# A Dawsonia sp.
poss. D. longiseta
within the Family
Polytrichaceae
  ALA Canberra Nature Map Janet Russell  

Algae

Algae is a vague grouping of ancient, mostly aquatic organisms, which includes:

Text at eFlora SA

Photos of As-Yet Unidentified Algae:

Submerged green, fuzzy body
5 Sep 2008,
A Cyanobacterium species,
poss. Phormidium sp.

This is a page within the Bunhybee Grasslands Web-Site, home-page here, and site-map here
Contact: Linda or Roger
Created: 1 October 2013; Last Amended: 1 Oct, 23 Oct 2020