Despite the almost ominous comment made by Dr. Klips on the bus ride over that Cedar Bog was not a bog, I was clearly imagining the scene from Lord of the Rings where Frodo falls into the Dead Marshes. Perhaps there would be towering trees arching over the wetland in places, then coarse grasses or sedges and bristling flowering plants, with boardwalks stretching over deep mud and water that were hidden with a false carpet of moss or perhaps a breed of algae. It was a rather romanticized and dramatic idea, if I’m being honest. Even if it was not truly a bog, I was imagining a hauntingly beautiful scene that would encourage everyone to stick to the centre of the boardwalk. However, a magnificent scene met our eyes upon pulling into the parking lot, with a beautiful prairie and lush woods. This did not suit my mental image at all and I soon learned all about how this place was not a bog, but rather a fen.
I associate fens with the UK, what with all the chilling legends and myths circulating around fens and other similar wetlands or bodies of water, but it was a delight to explore this misnamed natural wonder. We filed into the nature center for a lovely talk regarding the history and geology of the park and were met with some charming graphics explaining the differences between bogs and fens. Even if being called a “bog” is incorrect, the faulty name provides a splendid teaching opportunity and I cannot fault them for keeping the name. As depicted in the helpful signage, “fens flush” and “bogs clog.” As charming as the little memory tool is, it only took me so far. The further explanation was needed to help with actually understanding the “why” of the identification of fens versus bogs.
Cedar “Bog” is surrounded by hills of limestone and sandy gravel, which funnels the water into the fen. This entire region acts as an aquifer and rainfall in surrounding areas fills it up, only for streams to drain the water. The water is clear and well-filtered into a neutral or alkaline pH. Bogs are also filled by rainwater, but lack the draining streams. Instead, dead leaves decompose in the bottom and create a layer of peat, making the water brown and acidic. There are often carpets of Sphagnum moss atop the water, similar to my initial image of the bog.
With white cedar, black and green ash, and musclewood making up most of the middle canopy, and tulip trees, oaks, and maples composing the upper canopy, the tree scene of Cedar Bog was vibrant in colour and diversity. The understory included prickly ash, spicebush, and hoptree, with jewelweed, false nettle, white snakeroot, virgin’s bower, swamp thistle, and several invasives. Everywhere we looked, there was a new plant species and almost every other specimen seemed to be threatened, highly conservative, rare, or otherwise worthy of note. The landscape was very flat and the recent drought seemed to have flushed the fen of most, if not all, of its water.
The exciting new species only began in the forest, whereas the prairie filled my notebook with still more species! Sycamore and white cedar seemed to be the primary trees on the outskirts of the grass- and sedge-dominated fields. The fields themselves were filled with lobelias (both brook and great), grass of parnasus, goldenrods, and an overwhelming amount of grasses and sedges I did not know and was not properly introduced to. Highlights of the prairie included the swamp birch, Ohio goldenrod, shrubby cinquefoil, prairie dock, sundew (my favourite!), and some poison sumac on the outskirts towards the end of the walk. The prairie was a fascinating and impressive array of plants of many shapes and colours.
With a CC of 10, the most conservative on the scale, Swamp birch was a very low shrub in the prairie. It seems to thrive in the fen, even now that it is so terribly dry. I am quite partial to birch trees, given their frequent featuring in art, the mention of them in some of my childhood favourite reads such as The Indian in the Cupboard, and their lovely, peeling bark… wait… swamp birch is different in its own charmingly unique way in that it lacks the loose, papery, peeling bark, but keeps the recognizable lenticels.
Oh, it’s just another goldenrod… with yellow flowers and a relatively unnoticeable form, the Ohio Goldenrod may not look that special, but its CC value is 9–that’s right, 9 (just one away from the highest CC)! Its umbel shape and choice of habitat are distinctive. I enjoy the general appearance of goldenrods and enjoyed digi-binning this happy little wildflower.
If not for its size and almost gangly appearance, this might be mistaken for another, more common thistle. This plant’s CC value is 8 and its flowers looked like they belonged in a painting with a fat, yellow bumblebee buzzing about them, with mist and sun dapples playing with its leaves.
10… 9… 8… 7 –see what I did there? Poison sumac, with a CC value of 7, was readily noticeable and easy to identify, which is quite fortunate, given the poisonous nature of its leaves. Another favourable turn of events is how high up the leaves are! If you were going to get poison sumac rashes on your arms, you’d have to really, truly want it.
As seen in the two pictures above, Cedar Bog had some really cool woody vines! Virgin’s bower, with its hairy head, and Moonseed, with its plastic leaves, were the two primary woody vines present. The Virgin’s bower, especially, was one I saw at regular intervals on the trail we followed. In the genus Clematis, it definitely reminded me of our Clematis vine (sadly not this particular one) that climbs up the back of my family’s mailbox! For the Moonseed, I only saw one or two specimens and was quite struck by the variation of the leaves!
What a wonderful trip to a new area! I heard of Cedar Bog previously only in passing and am delighted to say that I really appreciated the park and would enjoy revisiting it. As a birder, I like to keep a life list of all of the species that I see for the first time, where I saw them, and when I saw them. In Cedar Bog alone, I got 20 plant “lifers,” and this trip felt like a whirlwind. I cannot help but imagine how many more species I could see on another trip.