ENTS-
Visited a couple of sites today in Portage County, Ohio--one
a fen, the
other a glacial kettle bog, located within a few miles of each
other, and
with native tamarack as the unifying feature. Herrick Fen, in
Streetsboro,
has a population of tamarack, and also shrubby cinquefoil and
northern
bayberry; a couple of photos: .
Herrick Fen Tamaracks
Kent Bog, a glacial kettle bog, was for me
the more interesting area, with a much greater number of
tamaracks, plus
northern species such as leahterleaf, grey birch, and
mountain-holly.
Highbush blueberry was the dominant shrub layer at Kent Bog.,
with cranberry
also present. Kent Bog is listed as the most southern
significant population
of tamaracks(3,500). The tamaracks in both areas topped out at
only around
40'(48' max in Kent). .
Kent Bog
More photos of the area are here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/srgalehouse/HerrickFenAndKentBogPortageCountyOhio
Steve
Steve,
Nice report. I like to see descriptions of different sites
and small pockets of interest. Most of the time your embedded
photos work for me, but this time they did not. I can view the
photos on the picasaweb site you sent. (Some captions on them
would be nice.)
The Ohio DNR website
http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/location/KentBog/tabid/900/Default.aspx
says it is only 42 acres and located near Kent Ohio in Portage
County. I a always curious about management practices used to
preserve small sites such as this, but unfortunately there is
little written about it available on the web. There is a 0.5
mile long boardwalk shown on the map and in some of the photos.
Well defined trails and boardwalks do help preserve these small
sites by keeping most people to a defined path rather than
tramping all over.
Ed