Today I finished the in-the-field pictures and notes from the Huckleberry Bog Trail. It took me almost exactly the same amount of time as I spent on the first half. (Five hours of just botanizing, not counting walking in and out.) Not that it matters. I just thought it was interesting. This is a picture of the bog itself. It's really filling in with plants, but you can see one black spruce, typical of an acidic bog, growing in the middle.
I loved this fallen tree, and the green light
There were several kinds of club mosses. This is tree clubmoss, sometimes called princess pine, and various other names. It also has several scientific names, since the DNA testing is rearranging all of these genera. It used to be Lycopodium obscurum. I like this picture because I got the strobilus (the thing at the tip where its spores are produced)
The bog is within Urbana State Forest, and this particular area used to be a homestead. Here is part of the house foundation. You can just see some layered stones making part of a basement wall.
The barn foundation is better preserved. It was a bank barn, and here you can see the lower wall in the foreground, and the wall that was beneath the bank in the background.
Distance walked- at least 5 miles, but again, there was lots of wandering, and exploring, and back and forthing. I tightened up my knowledge of a few ferns, and hope to begin to learn how to tell shagbark from bitternut hickory when I compare my pix with the field guide tomorrow.
Tomorrow will be another semi-chill day as I work to label the pictures for the rest of this project and finalize my notes.
 | See Huckleberry Bog Day 2 |
2 comments:
This was a fun project. I like that tree clubmoss
There are a number of places around here where you can find old barn and cabin foundations, as well as old stone fences.
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