This weekend, I found orchids! But we'll get to that...
I visited Pinhook Bog in Michigan City, Indiana, near the southern edge of Lake Michigan. The southern coast of Lake Michigan, between Sleeping Bear Dunes and the Door Peninsula, is one of the most biodiverse spots on the North American continent, culminating at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. The National Park Service runs Pinhook Bog. You can walk around the moraines above the bog, or on certain Saturdays from 12-3, you can visit the gated-off bog itself. We arrived a bit early, so we hiked around for a bit above the bog.
I'm hoping someone knows what species of butterfly this is. All I know is that it sat still long enough for one good photo, before fluttering away.
There are ravines here, in loose soils of the Valpraiso Moraine, and filled with old trees, though there were holes in the canopy where Emerald Ash Borers had killed off ash trees around the forest. Emerald Ash Borers are making their way down to Central Illinois, and will be here within five years, according to all predictions. I hate those bugs. But I digress from lighter topics.
On the forest floor, this toad (Bufo sp.) hopped along, blending in with the forest floor perfectly.
We soon came to a bridge over a pond connected to the bog. A true quaking bog like Pinhook Bog has no natural outlet, so any water that flows in remains in the bog's basin. As a result, the water is full of tannins and other natural chemicals that make it a brown-black in color.
The only place I've ever seen with similarly colored waters was a swamp in Florida.
Upland, we found boulders every so often, considered to have been left behind by glaciers in the moraine, A moraine, by the way, is a great ridge of land that a glacier leaves behind when it reaches its furthest extent. To put it simply, think of a bulldozer. As it goes along, it scrapes the land along in front of it, pushing soil and rock. When it stops, it leaves a pile of whatever it scraped off in front. A glacier is essentially God's bulldozer, and a moraine is the mound of dirt left behind.
Dense growths of Ostrich Ferns (Matteuccia struthiopteris) could be seen in wet places. It isn't only soil and rock that were scraped south by glaciers, but soil and seeds, too. This species of fern reaches its furthest south around the same area as the the southern limits of the most recent glaciation, according to geologists.
Oh! This is an Eastern Hemlock (Tsuga canadensis), growing near one of the wooded ravines. They aren't recorded from northern Indiana. These might have been planted, but I doubt it. I suspect that there are far more Eastern Hemlocks in the Chicago/Gary vicinity that previously believed, considering this is my second time finding an "unrecorded" population. Make no mistake, there are trees of several ages here. It definitely looks like a natural or naturalized population.
In the woods nearby, this Cedar Waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum) flitted about, always in motion. These birds love berries, and ripening blueberries and raspberries in the area attract them like flies.
At a nearby creek, we could see a large number of rocks which had eroded out of the moraine.
As it was now time for the bog to open, we exited the trail and went back to the parking lot. A couple of rangers showed us in on the unlocked path. Along the edge of the bog, the strange Lizard's Tail (Saururus cernuus) bloomed, an interesting species of wetland plant.
The rangers then opened the second gate, and we hiked into the outer ring of the bog. About this time, my dad and I heard a Sandhill Crane call from someplace deep in the bog. We never saw the bird, sadly.
A quaking bog is arranged in layers, starting with the outer belt around the edge. The outer layer of a quaking bog seems to be the most variable. This one was filled with ferns, which was fine by me. I can't identify most ferns, but I really like them anyway.
Underneath all of the plants is a thick mat of Sphagnum Moss. also known as peat moss. Underneath this moss layer, there is a large body of water. It is this mass of peat moss that holds up all the plants in the quaking bog. By the way, it's called a quaking bog because the entire bog shakes when one part is moved. For instance, if you jump up and down on the boardwalk, the entire bog around you will quiver, because the two are attached.
This is a cross-section of Pinhook Bog. According to geologists, quaking bogs form when a large blog of ice breaks off of a glacier, leaving behind a depression that fills with water, known as a kettle-hole lake. For a true bog to form, there must be no outlet of water, either through a stream or underground. Eventually, this lake fills with sphagnum peat moss from the sides inward. As the mat thickens, herbaceous plants and then shrubs and trees grow on the mat. The peat moss mat thickens and dead peat sinks to the bottom, slowly filling in the bog. Eventually, the entire bog fills in with peat, and the area is covered over by regular forest. This process is known as bog succession.
The Water Arum (Calla palustris), is a far northern species found in only one county in Illinois and three in Indiana. This plant is much more common up in Canada, where there's thousands of bogs.
Plants like this are incredibly rare
Above are Royal Ferns (Osmunda spectribilis), once ground up for use as orchid potting soil. That seems like a promising sign...
Oh! What's this hiding underneath? It's my very first Ladyslipper Orchid, the Pink Lady's Slipper (Cypripedium acaule). Unfortunately, it's out of flower by about a month. This is very rare plant here in the Midwest, but out in the Northeast, it's supposed to be fairly common.
A few seconds later, I found this orchid (plant in the center), though again, it had no flowers. My personal guess is that it's an Orange/Yellow Fringed Orchid (Platanthera ciliaris), which bloom in late July and are even more rare in Illinois than the last orchid.
Growing on the bog near us were full-sized trees, though none very tall. As the bog's soils are only a few feet deep, the trees could easily tip over in strong winds. The needle-leafed tree is the Tamarack (Larix laricina), another Canadian plant growing far south of its normal range.
I've decided to cut this post into two parts. Read on in part two for carnivorous (insect-eating) plants and orchids actually in flower.
TO BE CONTINUED...
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