The Ohio Members only Bog Trip
September 2011
Stacy Iwanicki and eight FOVB members: Brian & Kate Altman, Nina Denne, Yvette Lautaud, Steve Savocchi, Wayne Schennum, and Bob & Karen Vetter drove to Ohio on September 24th to meet with our guides Karen Adair, Northeast Ohio projects manager and Charlotte McCurdy, Northeast District Preserve Manager. Late that same afternoon Karen guided us through J. Arthur Herrick Fen Nature Preserve near the Kent University.
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Day one with Karen Adair
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The J Arthur Herrick Fen was formed in part by a dam across the tributary of Tinkers Creek. Here is found large cranberry, shrubby cinquefoil, round-leaved sundew, turtle head and other rare wetland plants. We also saw cattails, sedges, poison sumac, and reproducing tamaracks. |
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Photo by Stacy Iwanicki |
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Day two with Charlotte McCurdy |
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Our first Stop was at the Kent Bog, a late successional bog known for having more then 3,500 tamaracks with many robust seedlings growing among much larger trees. It also has a fine population of gray birch. Ten species of sphagnum moss and many rare species of various bog plants, including small cranberry. Our next stop was Triangle Lake Bog, a kettle-lake bog with floating sphagnum mat supporting northern pitcher-plants, and round-leaved sundews. We then went to the Wingfoot Lake State Park, where Charlotte has her office to pick up some hand outs that she had for us. We got to see the Goodyear blimp and its hanger, which was across the lake from her office. Our next stop was the Jackson Bog State Nature Preserve. The Jackson Bog is actually a fen. Artesian springs feed this fen with ground water highly charged with calcium and magnesium bicarbonates forming a grayish-white lime-rich mud known as marl. Since very few plants can survive in these cold wet areas, they remain open and wet year-round. Below the seep zone there is peat and the plants that live in it. |
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Photos by Kate Altman |
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Day three with Charlotte McCurdy and Bill & Joyce Browning
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Brown’s Lake Bog is known to be the most southernmost open water kettle lake bog in the United States. This preserve is owned and managed by the Ohio chapter of the Nature Conservancy. It no longer has the tamaracks found in most US bogs, but it is rich in many other bog plants such as pitcher-plants, round-leaved sundews, buckbean, cranberry, and rose pogonia orchids. The mat also supports poison sumac, highbush blueberry, and other bog shrubs, but it is surrounded by red and silver maples and various oaks. We said our goodbyes at this wonderful bog, and we all headed home. |
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Photo by Kate Altman |
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