Beware of Bog

So often, a landowner will describe to a WPC Ecologist a place that has “quicksand” or a wet area where “you'll sink all the way in.” Sometimes these descriptions will be offered as a warning, sometimes as an amusing curiosity. The advice is welcome, although we know that it's not quicksand that we'll encounter but a good, deep, mucky wetland (usually, knee boots suffice).

People so often use the term bog to describe these areas, but bogs are really very specific kinds of wetlands that receive almost all their water from precipitation and are peat-forming. Peat is dead plant material that, under the fully saturated conditions in the bog, accumulates faster than it can decay. Peat is usually predominately Sphagnum moss, but can also be composed of other plant material, especially sedges – grass-like plants of which certain species grow characteristically in bogs. The peat can be deep in many of our bogs and indeed, you will sink in, but unless you are standing on a "floating mat," not all the way in. Today's photo is of a small bog in the McLaughlin Run drainage in Crawford County, and was taken by Jeff Wagner, WPC Ecologist.

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