LET'S GO BOG SLOGGIN'

Well, another bog slog under my belt. For some reason, I have this proclivity to explore bogs, i.e., wetland habitats populated by unique plants and creatures adapted to living in a semi-aquatic or at least very wet environment. Several things are required to take part in a bog slog, chief of which is to try to find one. Bogs were anathema to our immediate ancestors, engineers, and realtors. Such a waste, in their eyes. Consequently much of what were former bogs, were drained and either plowed up or paved over with concrete. Sometimes a bog will disappear naturally and succumb to its own success. If there is no water outlet and no new water coming in, the growth of plants gradually matures and dies, paving the way for a new layer to take its place, and so on, layer upon layer, until finally the bog no longer exists. Consequently, bogs tend to be off the beaten path and you must work hard to find or get to one. One of my favorites, located in southwestern Pennsylvania, is reached by a long walk to a landmark, from which you must take off at a pre-determined compass heading to get there. So, if you know how to use a compass, getting there is half the fun.

Next, you must be prepared for wet feet. Taking a step in a bog often means sinking in over your shoe tops. Or higher! They don't call them bog slogs for nothing. Some sloggers wear boots which serves only to make the water line higher. Water can come in over boot tops as well and a water-filled boot is no fun. I prefer just to wear my grungiest tennies (n.b., all of my tennies are grungy so making such a choice is difficult). Many of the most interesting plants are low-growing in which case, you must get down on your knees to examine or photograph the beauty you just found. Remember what happened to your shoes? Well then, wet knees are de riguer as well. Occasionally you either stumble or sink well below expectation which can result in a backwards fall, so a wet bottom is a sign you have had some fun! Did I mention that the territory being explored was pretty wet? Well, pretty wet can mean pretty bugs. Lots of 'em. A little bug spray or a lot of resistance to being bugged are also helpful things to take along.

Approaching a bog usually means you are traveling through transition zones to get there. The edges of a bog were once part of the bog in previous times, but now support the growth of new flora which consists primarily of shrubby species. This means that although you have been proceeding nicely enough through open woods, now you are fighting thick underbrush and getting slapped in the face by branches bent forwards by the guy walking ahead of you. Sometime the approach is pleasant like walking through waist-high Cinnamon Ferns or it can be physically challenging like trying to find your way through a Rhododendron or Mountain Laurel jumble (they don't call them laurel hells for nothing). Like I say, getting there is half the fun.

In recent weeks I have had the opportunity to take part in two bog slogs, one to Chalk Hill Bog near Fort Necessity National Historic Park close to Farmington PA and more recently to Christner Bog near Pennsylvania's highest point, Mt. Davis. At 3,213 feet above sea level, Mt. Davis isn't terribly high for the Appalachians of which it is a part nor does it stand out either because the "peak" is but a bump in a long ridge of the Laurel Highlands in Forbes State Forest. Don't expect to find Christner Bog on any map; you have to go there with someone who has been there before. In fact, the official PA state map does not even clearly show how to find Mt. Davis! Our leader had a GPS thingy in which he had recorded co-ordinants obtained from some one else, but I consider this cheating and missing out on a lot of the stumbling around trying to find just where in the heck it was.

A date, time, and place were set to rally and off we went down the requisite back roads to the jumping off point. After briefly summiting Mt. Davis, our pull off was but a short distance further. Dense, mature forest completely surrounded the road as well as Mt. Davis and were it not for a sign proclaiming the 3,213 datum, you would not know you had achieved such a remarkable geographic experience! Since we were there for a botanic experience, you can start looking as soon as you get out of the car. On the roadside were two plants not in most people's floristic acumen, Poke Milkweed and Hogpeanut. I immediately recognized the distinctive seed pods of an Asclepias, but I was unfamiliar with this particular species. Our leader chose to take us on a dead reckoning course set by the GPS task master. This resulted in a lot of branch fighting, root tripping, ankle-twisting and what not, but a number of colorful mushrooms greeted us along the way, e.g. several colorful russulas, scads of amanitas, particularly the Blusher, and some small waxycaps. Check out the photo on the left of a Yellow Waxycap. Of particular interest to me was an otherwise undistinguished and often-overlooked species known as Slippery Caps.

At last, the bog appeared and we were greeted by an amazingly dense stand of Golden Club which must have been a spectacular sight when in bloom two months previously. This species has not been found often in West Virginia. My only experience with it has been in a backwater of the Cheat River near Holly Meadows in Tucker County. Cotton Grass here and there signaled what we were in store for a little later when we entered the larger glade and found it everywhere. I consider this species a friendly marker of other bogs and high places I have known. From this little sub-bog of the larger, we re-entered the laurel hell and proceeded further along our way. I periodically made note of my reverse compass heading as a precaution thinking that the leader's GPS thingy's battery might zonk out or else he could drop it in the water! My compass still works under water after repeated dunkings :) After a few slaps in the face by laurel boughs, we found the larger part of the bog (see photo above left) and I have never seen so many Pitcher Plants! They were everywhere. The lighter elements are either Cotton Grass heads or Pitcher Plant blooms mixed together - a wonderful sight. In the past, the only ones I had ever seen previously were single clumps here and there as they do in Chalk Hill Bog. It is an interesting species. You always find it in boggy situations and its nutritional requirements must be very exact. I have known this species to have been deliberately planted or introduced into other bogs nearby and they just held on for years before spreading and then only slightly. But here in Christner, it was Pitcher Plant heaven. It is an insectivorous plant that grows in nitrogen-poor soil. To supplement its nutrition for this essential element, it has evolved a curious method of trapping insects which it dissolves as nutritional supplements. The insect is attracted to the flower or to the sap secreted in water caught in the curious pitcher-shaped leaves forming a rosette at the base of the plant. Anyway, the bug falls into the soup held by the leaves, it drowns, it is dissolved, end of bug. See a close-up on the left.

Another neat insectivorous plant requires keen eyesight to find, Sundews. Each plant consists of a rosette of leaves on stems arising from a central point. On the tips of each leaf are tiny drops of a fluid that traps and dissolves tiny bugs. Notice that the plant is a light red color and this blends in so well with the surrounding sphagnum moss that it is often difficult to see them. There are three species of these interesting little plants, one of which and maybe two that have been introduced from elsewhere.

Other interesting flowers are found in these bogs, e.g., Rose Pogonia, Narrow-leaved Gentian, Grass Pinks, Clammy Azalea and many more have been seen on recent slogs. These are indicator plants, i.e., their distribution has declined markedly since records have begun to be kept and this signals an irretrievable loss that can not be sustained. Contrary to the U.S. Corps of Engineers' opinion, you can not create a wetland with a bulldozer. It takes decades if not centuries to evolve these habitats. It behooves us to take care of the few that we have remaining.