Showing posts with label bog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bog. Show all posts

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Wild blueberry


Wild blueberries (Vaccinium corymbosum) are ripening now. These are highbush blueberries, closely related to the commercially-farmed berries grown near Kalamazoo. Michigan also has two species of lowbush blueberries that only grow a few inches high, while the highbush blueberry grows several feet tall. The sweet fruits are popular with birds, animals, and people.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Wild cranberry

Wild cranberries (Vaccinium oxycoccos) are blooming now. I didn't recognize the tiny flowers but they were easy to find in a guidebook. Michigan has a similar species, the large cranberry, (Vaccinium macrocarpon) but based on the leaves I think the flowers pictured are the small cranberry. Both plants are native to bogs and grow throughout the northern US and in Canada.
Cranberries are in the blueberry family, but the plants only grow a few inches tall. Wild blueberries grow in the same bog but the plants are much taller. The blueberry bushes have already set fruit.

Other nearby plants included Lady's Slipper, whose flowers were mostly gone, and Snake's Mouth orchid which are just starting to bloom.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Orange Fringed Orchid

This pretty bog flower is usually called the "Yellow Fringed Orchid" but our local ones are orange. A less common but more romantic name is "Bobwhite’s Moccasin." Platanthera ciliaris is its current Latin name. It's legally protected in Michigan as an endangered species.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Not so evergreen

Most conifers in Michigan are green year round. The Tamarack (Larix laricina) is the only one that loses its needles for winter. The brown needles remind me of an artificial tree I almost bought by mistake in Uruguay.

Kalamazoo is at the southern edge of this tree's range which extends to northern Canada. Historically, tamarack has been used for many purposes from ships to paper to decoys.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Wild orchid

Michigan's bogs have a number of unusual plants, including carnivorous ones. Orchids don't eat meat but they are beautiful enough that collectors threaten their existence. Many are protected by state and federal laws.

The Snake's Mouth orchid, or Rose Pogonia, [Pogonia ophioglossoides] is blooming now.