Post by aarongunnar on Apr 27, 2012 17:07:33 GMT -5
This is probably the nearest Sarracenia site to my house, although I'm not 100% sure. About an hour's drive from me, in northern Chippewa Co., WI. This is an area that marks the furthest advance of a glacier, and is a hilly area marked with hundreds of small kettle lakes. Interestingly, only a small percentage of them have sphagnum bogs around them, providing habitat for S. purpurea. This particular site, I found out, is quite easy to access, so I am sure I will be making more trips (hopefully).
This shows the bog moat surrounding the bog. The upland is on the right, with the bog on the left. The moat was the only obstacle to overcome to reach it. The deepest part, I found out, was exactly 1" deeper than my rubber boots :-). We did find a fallen log that we were able to cross on, without too much difficulty.
Another shot looking across the moat, into the bog. The tamaracks are starting to leaf out, probably about 3 weeks ahead of a normal spring. It's been abnormally warm in WI, for the most part, this spring.
The first pitcher sighting. You can see a cranberry stem creeping across the top of the picture.
An emerging flower bud. Probably a week or two behind my cultivated plants, which I moved outside from the garage back in early March, when we had about a week of 80 degree temps.
I found this pod from last year, which had yet to disperse its seeds. With a little human intervention, they are now dispersed.
A nice red clump of pitchers on this plant.
Trying for an "artistic" shot on this one, which also left me with drenched pants on my knee. The spiky, out of focus plant in the background, I believe, is White Beak Rush, which is a pretty common associate in northern bogs, especially those that have some groundwater influence. Poor Fen I think is the proper term for this habitat, not bog.
A mound of Sphagnum, with bog club-moss interspersed throughout, which is another plant that gives an indication there is some groundwater influence to this bog, er, I mean Poor Fen.
Kind of hard to see, but I found this small patch with a lot of 2-3 year old seedlings trying to grow up out of the Sphagnum.
The largest pitcher I saw. I held it up a little to give it a size reference.
Lastly, a shot of the small kettle lake, taken from the edge of the bog, er, I mean Poor Fen.
This shows the bog moat surrounding the bog. The upland is on the right, with the bog on the left. The moat was the only obstacle to overcome to reach it. The deepest part, I found out, was exactly 1" deeper than my rubber boots :-). We did find a fallen log that we were able to cross on, without too much difficulty.
Another shot looking across the moat, into the bog. The tamaracks are starting to leaf out, probably about 3 weeks ahead of a normal spring. It's been abnormally warm in WI, for the most part, this spring.
The first pitcher sighting. You can see a cranberry stem creeping across the top of the picture.
An emerging flower bud. Probably a week or two behind my cultivated plants, which I moved outside from the garage back in early March, when we had about a week of 80 degree temps.
I found this pod from last year, which had yet to disperse its seeds. With a little human intervention, they are now dispersed.
A nice red clump of pitchers on this plant.
Trying for an "artistic" shot on this one, which also left me with drenched pants on my knee. The spiky, out of focus plant in the background, I believe, is White Beak Rush, which is a pretty common associate in northern bogs, especially those that have some groundwater influence. Poor Fen I think is the proper term for this habitat, not bog.
A mound of Sphagnum, with bog club-moss interspersed throughout, which is another plant that gives an indication there is some groundwater influence to this bog, er, I mean Poor Fen.
Kind of hard to see, but I found this small patch with a lot of 2-3 year old seedlings trying to grow up out of the Sphagnum.
The largest pitcher I saw. I held it up a little to give it a size reference.
Lastly, a shot of the small kettle lake, taken from the edge of the bog, er, I mean Poor Fen.