Post by mabudon on Jul 22, 2006 10:33:49 GMT -5
Yesterday I had a wild experience in the bogs of SW Ontario
Myself, purpman and jay along with a fellow from New Zealand set out to hit a proper sphagnum bog and some marl fens
The first bog we visited was totally SHOCKING... the bugs getting in were insane, but once on the mat they kinda mellowed a bit. In the habitat was tons of red and green sphag and some HUGE D.rotundifolia (tons of them) but the real highlight was the S.purpurea... the diversity of the plants was almost silly, ranging from "typical" specimens (which oddly comprised some 5-10% or less of the totaly population) to total heterophylla (which we did not have the time to actually find- there were hundreds or more likely several thousand plants in there)
Lots of pics were taken, the best of which will be posted once we get them organized
The next locations were along the edge of bays along the western edge of the Bruce peninsula. Somehow the names of the places visited escape me.
The marl fen habitata was the perfect opposite to the Sphag bog... bone-dry "dirt" littered with orchids and odd, tiny S.purpurea everywhere, most displaying really intense colouration and the brittle pitchers noted in several publications
Also in evidence were several stands of D.linearis (usually in rings around the Sarrs) and some small patches of P.vulgaris. U.cornuta (I think) was also pretty much everywhere in this habitat and blooming like mad, most interesting was an odd patch about halfway out in the sandbar by the receding lake huron- from a few hundred metres away, there was just one patch of brilliant yellow, and when we walked out there, a spring of some sort was feeding the little oasis, in the surrounding "puddle" we found some sort of aquatic Utric as well
The oddest part of the fen habitat was the huge number of plants on the "boulevards" of the local properties... S.purpurea and D.linearis seeming to fall prey to feet, tires and lawnmowers!!!!
The phrase of the day goes to purpman- while describing the town of Wiartons significance to our NZ guest, he mistakenly referred to Wiarton Willie (the groundhog that does the weather prognostication) as antho-free (he is an albino groundhog)....
After much laughing, we decided maybe we would make an Antho-free S.purpurea our new weatherman- when he finally starts really growing, it'll be May so you know he'll always be bang-on as to when spring is actually here!
It was a really fun trip- originally we had planned for 2 days but EVERYTHING conspired agaionst us at every turn... waking up today with the rain tho, I think it was lucky our plans changed as being out there today in this would have been much less fun than doing the trip under partially sunny conditions.
Hopefully we will be doing more stuff like this in the future, as I was nearly shocked at the things we saw yesterday
Myself, purpman and jay along with a fellow from New Zealand set out to hit a proper sphagnum bog and some marl fens
The first bog we visited was totally SHOCKING... the bugs getting in were insane, but once on the mat they kinda mellowed a bit. In the habitat was tons of red and green sphag and some HUGE D.rotundifolia (tons of them) but the real highlight was the S.purpurea... the diversity of the plants was almost silly, ranging from "typical" specimens (which oddly comprised some 5-10% or less of the totaly population) to total heterophylla (which we did not have the time to actually find- there were hundreds or more likely several thousand plants in there)
Lots of pics were taken, the best of which will be posted once we get them organized
The next locations were along the edge of bays along the western edge of the Bruce peninsula. Somehow the names of the places visited escape me.
The marl fen habitata was the perfect opposite to the Sphag bog... bone-dry "dirt" littered with orchids and odd, tiny S.purpurea everywhere, most displaying really intense colouration and the brittle pitchers noted in several publications
Also in evidence were several stands of D.linearis (usually in rings around the Sarrs) and some small patches of P.vulgaris. U.cornuta (I think) was also pretty much everywhere in this habitat and blooming like mad, most interesting was an odd patch about halfway out in the sandbar by the receding lake huron- from a few hundred metres away, there was just one patch of brilliant yellow, and when we walked out there, a spring of some sort was feeding the little oasis, in the surrounding "puddle" we found some sort of aquatic Utric as well
The oddest part of the fen habitat was the huge number of plants on the "boulevards" of the local properties... S.purpurea and D.linearis seeming to fall prey to feet, tires and lawnmowers!!!!
The phrase of the day goes to purpman- while describing the town of Wiartons significance to our NZ guest, he mistakenly referred to Wiarton Willie (the groundhog that does the weather prognostication) as antho-free (he is an albino groundhog)....
After much laughing, we decided maybe we would make an Antho-free S.purpurea our new weatherman- when he finally starts really growing, it'll be May so you know he'll always be bang-on as to when spring is actually here!
It was a really fun trip- originally we had planned for 2 days but EVERYTHING conspired agaionst us at every turn... waking up today with the rain tho, I think it was lucky our plans changed as being out there today in this would have been much less fun than doing the trip under partially sunny conditions.
Hopefully we will be doing more stuff like this in the future, as I was nearly shocked at the things we saw yesterday