May 22, 2011 Thirty Miles for One Flower

You may question the wisdom of driving thirty miles to see one flower that I haven't seen in bloom yet this year.  It may not be wise, but I succumbed anyway and drove to ACRES Glenwood Preserve near Clunette in Koskiosko County.  The preserve includes a wet woods predominated by silver maple, a drier oak-hickory wodds and a sphagnum bog.  Not much is blooming in the bog yet, and the oak woods has flowers that we've seen many places already this season.  It's the wet woods that has the flower I drove thirty miles to see.

A wet woods with many Silver Maples

Canada Mayflower is a fine flower, but hardly spectacular.  Here it is.

Three shots of Canada Mayflower, Maianthemum canadense

Only a few other flowers, also unspectacular, are in bloom now in the wet woods.

Sweet Cicely, Osmorhiza longistylus

Clustered Snakeroot, Sanicula odorat

Sphagnum bog

I'll go back to ACRES Glenwood Preserve later in the summer to see what is blooming in the bog.  It is an interesting plant community that grows over the top of a lake; it is bouncy when you walk on the mat of plants that cover it.