Sphagnum bogs in Alaska!
Jan 10, 2017 19:08:56 GMT -5
Jonathan Mejia, jdallas, and 13 more like this
Post by meizzwang on Jan 10, 2017 19:08:56 GMT -5
One of the most exciting trips I've ever been on was a trip to Cordova, Alaska in August 2009. It was during the beginning of the recession, so very few people were up there and we had the entire bay to ourselves! You have to fly everywhere in pontoon planes, and we rented cabins that were isolated and far from the city.
Of the many cabins that we moved around to, the best one had a private beach front with a view of islands and the ocean. Behind the cabin was an extensive bog which I spent a lot of time exploring. There's a lot more to this alaska trip, but for now I'll focus on the bogs since that's what's most relevant to the fellow plant nerds here
some sphagnum bogs in Alaska, all photos are from August 2009:
There's just square miles and miles of these bogs, this is a shot from the pontoon plane as we were heading up into the mountains:
Here's what the bogs look like from the ground, those ditches are caused by bears digging through the moss:
It was so beautiful up there, but you have to keep your eyes peeled for bears, especially when the salmon were breeding up there. Bears are unpredictable, but for the most part they didn't mess with us and were shy. Our tour guide told us how a man walking his dog was attacked/ killed in the area that we were visiting. We never took our chances: anytime we were on land in the wilderness, we we were packing .45's:
Sphagnum looked best in part shade:
here it is sporulating! I've only been able to get sphagnum to sporulate once in cultivation, and that was last year during the spring time:
close up:
D. rotundifolia and D. anglica were literally everywhere:
Also found some cranberries, and I forgot to upload the blueberries which were very abundant:
Yellow foot mushrooms grew in pure sphagnum with droseras:
Another shot of some yellow foot mushrooms growing in sphagnum:
They were pretty amazing growing like this:
We had a great harvest of the mushrooms and I sauteed them with olive oil, garlic, onions, and some white wine. My friend said it was the best mushrooms he's ever had! Yellow foot mushrooms can be difficult to cook if they're too water-logged, but growing in sphagnum with very little rain while we were there, they had a very low moisture content. This made it very easy to clean and cook:
Word of caution: do not eat wild mushrooms unless you are an expert or know what you're doing! On that note, I'll try to continue this thread once I upload more pics.....
Of the many cabins that we moved around to, the best one had a private beach front with a view of islands and the ocean. Behind the cabin was an extensive bog which I spent a lot of time exploring. There's a lot more to this alaska trip, but for now I'll focus on the bogs since that's what's most relevant to the fellow plant nerds here
some sphagnum bogs in Alaska, all photos are from August 2009:
There's just square miles and miles of these bogs, this is a shot from the pontoon plane as we were heading up into the mountains:
Here's what the bogs look like from the ground, those ditches are caused by bears digging through the moss:
It was so beautiful up there, but you have to keep your eyes peeled for bears, especially when the salmon were breeding up there. Bears are unpredictable, but for the most part they didn't mess with us and were shy. Our tour guide told us how a man walking his dog was attacked/ killed in the area that we were visiting. We never took our chances: anytime we were on land in the wilderness, we we were packing .45's:
Sphagnum looked best in part shade:
here it is sporulating! I've only been able to get sphagnum to sporulate once in cultivation, and that was last year during the spring time:
close up:
D. rotundifolia and D. anglica were literally everywhere:
Also found some cranberries, and I forgot to upload the blueberries which were very abundant:
Yellow foot mushrooms grew in pure sphagnum with droseras:
Another shot of some yellow foot mushrooms growing in sphagnum:
They were pretty amazing growing like this:
We had a great harvest of the mushrooms and I sauteed them with olive oil, garlic, onions, and some white wine. My friend said it was the best mushrooms he's ever had! Yellow foot mushrooms can be difficult to cook if they're too water-logged, but growing in sphagnum with very little rain while we were there, they had a very low moisture content. This made it very easy to clean and cook:
Word of caution: do not eat wild mushrooms unless you are an expert or know what you're doing! On that note, I'll try to continue this thread once I upload more pics.....