Swamp Walking

So many cool things to see in my swampy travels!

The beautiful flowers of the carnivorous Pitcher Plant (Saracinia purpurea).  

The flower is so cool looking!

These are quite a beautiful sight to behold while sloshing through the Tamarack and Northern White Cedar swamps. 

The leaves of the Pitcher Plant are full of water and digestive enzymes to eat whatever unsuspecting insects land on those slippery hairs at the mouth of the opening. Kinda looks like a mouth doesn't it?

My first sighting of the rare (or threatened, I'm not really sure) Goldie's Fern (Dryopteris goldiana).

This is a beautiful fern and even seems to have a little gold coloring in the middle of the pinnae. 

The unopened inflorescence of Platanthera clavellata. There are only two known locations of  this rare orchid on the Chippewa. 

The minute flowers of the rare orchid Malaxis monophyllos var. brachypoda.  

Some adorable little carnivorous Sundews (Drosera rotundifolia). Others I have seen have red sticky hairs and are very striking. 

Finally some evidence of all the mosquitos they have around here! They always try to get at my hands and fingers when I am taking pictures. This is the orchid Amerorchis rotundifolia and I can never seem to get a very good picture of it.  

The flowers of the orchid Platanthera unifolia just starting to unfold.
 

Finally starting to see some Grape Ferns!

The Grape Fern Sceptridium multifidum. 

Sceptridium dissectum

Some Botrychium matricharifolium with maturing spores. 

The rare Grape Fern Sceptridium rugulosum. 

This is one of the more ridiculous Northern White Cedar tip up mounds I have seen. I could have almost walked inside this one. 

The rare Goblin Fern Botrychium mormo. This little guy is tiny and likes moist hardwood forests just like the mosquitos unfortunately. Not much fun when this thing is so small and requires looking underneath the underbrush!

This doesn't look like much but this is what the edge of a floating Sphagnum moss mat looks like. You never really know how deep the water actually is unless you break through and you definitely do not want that to happen. It feels like you are walking on top of an air mattress on water. Just a little bit freaky. I ended up in a few soft spots where I started slowly sinking so I got out of there quick!

Sorry for the blurry photo but this is my first detection of the rare Canada Yew (Taxus canadensis). 

It looks a lot like a fir sapling but is a richer green and has fatter needles with a pointed tip. 

This is Northern Oak Fern (Gymnocarpium robertianum) and I found two new detections of it! Before that there only four known locations on the Chippewa. Notice the delicious Dewberry (Rubus pubescens) to the right of the fern. So awesome to snack on wild berries and botanize at the same time!  

A very common orchid in the swamps at this time of year, Platanthera obtusata var. obtusata. 

I will finish this with a very cool collection of Cladonia species in this old cut off telephone pole.