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| See the pale blue flowers right above my hand? Those are hydrangeas. The white flowers are beautiful tulips! |
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| More pale blue hydrangeas in my bridesmaids' bouquets. |
Monday, July 30, 2012
The Hydrangeas of the Plantations
Hydrangeas are beautiful plants. In fact, I had hydrangeas in my wedding bouquet:
Anyway, enough about my wedding... Here are the beautiful hydrangeas of the Plantations!
Bog Day!
As part of our internship this summer, we get to go on various field trips. Well, a few weeks ago we got to visit some bogs!
What are bogs, you may ask? Well...
Bogs are bodies of water, like ponds, that accumulate dead plant material. Peat moss is usually the primary plant in bogs, and so the dead peat moss can accumulate meters thick under the water. The dead peat moss accumulates because the environment is very low on oxygen, so decomposition is very, very slow. Over this soggy mush of water and dead plants, the live plants grow. New mosses, wild cranberries, and carnivorous plants grow here. When you walk on this layer, it feels like you're walking on a water bed! Very squishy. You can even jump up and down on it like a trampoline.
Here are some of the awesome plants we saw while we were out there:
Sundew is a carnivorous plant that catches little bugs in its sticky "dew" on the end of its tentacles. These plants are tiny!
There are tons and tons of pitcher plants on bogs. These plants are also carnivorous. They trap bugs in the water within their pitchers. Carnivorous plants are more common in bogs because the environment is so low on nutrients.
This is the flower that the pitcher plant sends out:
A yellow water lily. This reminds me of bog lanterns... "Don't follow the lights!"
See the brown stuff coming out of this tree? That's mistletoe!
Grass pink orchids:
Some pretty white flowers:
Cute orange mushrooms!
And finally, a tiny tree frog that Ethan caught. It's so tiny!
What are bogs, you may ask? Well...
Bogs are bodies of water, like ponds, that accumulate dead plant material. Peat moss is usually the primary plant in bogs, and so the dead peat moss can accumulate meters thick under the water. The dead peat moss accumulates because the environment is very low on oxygen, so decomposition is very, very slow. Over this soggy mush of water and dead plants, the live plants grow. New mosses, wild cranberries, and carnivorous plants grow here. When you walk on this layer, it feels like you're walking on a water bed! Very squishy. You can even jump up and down on it like a trampoline.
Here are some of the awesome plants we saw while we were out there:
Sundew is a carnivorous plant that catches little bugs in its sticky "dew" on the end of its tentacles. These plants are tiny!
There are tons and tons of pitcher plants on bogs. These plants are also carnivorous. They trap bugs in the water within their pitchers. Carnivorous plants are more common in bogs because the environment is so low on nutrients.
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| There are two bugs in this picture. See the bug inside the plant? Some bugs are able to live inside pitcher plants and feed on the bugs the plant traps. |
This is the flower that the pitcher plant sends out:
A yellow water lily. This reminds me of bog lanterns... "Don't follow the lights!"
See the brown stuff coming out of this tree? That's mistletoe!
Grass pink orchids:
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| Sheltering under a baby Larch tree. |
Cute orange mushrooms!
And finally, a tiny tree frog that Ethan caught. It's so tiny!
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| Melanie with the tree frog. She really liked it. |
Friday, July 20, 2012
The Daisies and Coneflowers of the Plantations
Daisies and coneflowers are both members of the plant family asteraceae. "Aster" means "star" in Greek. Sunflowers are also part of this plant family. We have some of those at the Plantations, but I haven't gotten pictures of them yet. Hopefully I will soon! In the meantime, daisies and coneflowers:
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