(Photo above – a view of the bog from the east edge. You can see a good-sized patch of sphagnum moss in the middle of the photo.)
Today was interesting at the “magnolia bog” site. The trees were just starting to leaf out. I noticed a Vaccinium just getting ready to bloom.
I found a couple of Little-leaf buttercups (Ranunculus abortivus) blooming.
Additionally, there was another buttercup, which I believe to be Blisterwort (Ranunculus recurvatus) with leaves both above and below the water. No flowers yet however. The leaves above the water looked like some animal had been nibbling on them. I hope that does not mean there will be a problem with deer herbivory as we make an inventory of the plants in the bog.
Taking the pictures was a real challenge. I did not want to step on the hummocks for fear of harming plants that were just starting to come up. So I had to walk around in the areas in between. The problem was the muck. I used my staff to determine the depth of the muck to make sure I could step around without sinking too deep. The other problem with getting down to the level of the plants to make sure I could take decent pictures.
Last week, Joe Metzger and I looked around a bit, but we did not see much in the way of sphagnum moss. Today, I found some good patches. Obviously we were just looking in the wrong places.
The first four photographs below are of mystery plants. If you think you know what they are, please let me know. I believe one of them may be a Turk’s Cap Lily (Lilium superbum)
