M
musiclovertony
Guest
I visited a minerotrophic tamarack swamp in a nearby park reserve, earlier this week. I had spoken to the park naturalist early this spring and had told her of my intentions to go looking for orchids in this swamp and she told me she didn't know the swamp existed. One of the main attractions at this park is actually another tamarack swamp that has a boardwalk through it. Unfortunately, that swamp is suceeding to a cattail marsh, with hydrology changes causing extended flooding of the site every spring. The swamp I visited is about 40 acres and has a nice healthy canopy of tamarack trees. The shrub story is quite overgrown, though with native speckled alder and invasive buckthorn. In contrast to the other minerotrophic tamarack swamps I visit in which one can usually see for meters all around and which have many sedges and ferns, this swamp has so much shrub growth one can rarely see feet ahead and has much less sedge and fern growth.
As a minerotrophic swamp, most of the substrate is highly saturated, decayed peat (muck). In some areas that are more acidic (decaying stumps mainly) there are carpets of sphagnum moss. These are the areas where I found the native orchid I was looking for, Liparis loeselii. It's a very small orchid and not easy to photograph. The flowers themselves are about the size of a mosquito, so forgive the poor photographs.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/musicloveranthony/4708344022/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/musicloveranthony/4708344270/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/musicloveranthony/4707701035/in/photostream/
Certainly not a very showy orchid, but i think it's pretty neat just the same
As a minerotrophic swamp, most of the substrate is highly saturated, decayed peat (muck). In some areas that are more acidic (decaying stumps mainly) there are carpets of sphagnum moss. These are the areas where I found the native orchid I was looking for, Liparis loeselii. It's a very small orchid and not easy to photograph. The flowers themselves are about the size of a mosquito, so forgive the poor photographs.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/musicloveranthony/4708344022/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/musicloveranthony/4708344270/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/musicloveranthony/4707701035/in/photostream/
Certainly not a very showy orchid, but i think it's pretty neat just the same
