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| Entering the Cranesville Swamp |
Towards the end of a very rainy period in late May, a friend and I decided to visit the Cranesville Swamp. We'd missed the walk in early May during the West Virginia Wildflower Festival, and wanted to see this unusual botanical site. Straddling the edge of western Maryland and upper WV, this site is considered botanically unique because it's a "frost pocket", where the cold mountain air collects, making for a much colder environment than its latitude would indicate. The poorly-draining soil has created a classic high-altitude bog that contains some very unusual plants.
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| Hemlock forest |
The woods leading up to the boardwalk of the bog were lush--mostly tall hemlocks and white pine, with remnants of a red spruce forest that was heavily logged up until the 1950's. Today, hundreds of red spruce saplings have been planted by the Nature Conservancy, who owns the site, in an effort to restore the original forest.
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| Large specimen of red spruce. |
There are several varieties of club mosses found in this forest: ground cedar (Lycopodium digitatum), Tree clubmoss ( Lycopodium obscurum), which we photographed--the two others we probably saw, but could not identify.
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| Tree Club Moss (Lycopodium obscurum) with wild strawberry |
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Ground cedar (Lycopodium digitatum) Patches of tiny Bluets bloomed among the wild strawberries covering the ground, and White Beakrush here and there.
Cinnamon ferns abounded in the moist forest, with lady ferns and Oak ferns.
After a short walk through the forest, the trees cleared out and we were out in the open, arriving at the Cranesville Swamp. End of Part 1, see next post for Part 2. |
