New York Flora Association Blog

The New York Natural Heritage Program is assessing 20 different open wetlands in the Upper Hudson watershed this year as part of a project for the Division of Water in the DEC. On July 23rd Greg Edinger and I assessed a beaver-drowned fen near Benson in Hamilton County, on DEC land along the road to Lapland Lake ski center. The assessment includes data on species and their percent cover in an 80 meter diameter circle as well as in four 10×10 plots. Additional data on landscape quality surrounding the plots adds to the assessment. This marsh near Benson was difficult to walk around because of the deep water and thin sphagnum layer but we saw many interesting species. – Steve Young

This is a view across the marsh showing the deep water sections. It was dominated by sedges, especially Carex utriculata, and Sphagnum.

In the water the Brasenia shreberi, water shield, was in bloom.

Sparganium americanum, American Bur-reed, was common and in flower and fruit.

The wapato, Sagittaria latifolia, was in flower and had very narrow leaves here, resembling S. engelmannii.

Scattered around in the muck were the tiny flowers of Utricularia gibba, Cone-spur bladderwort. I had difficulty distinguishing it from the closely related U. geminiscapa.

This entry was posted on July 29, 2012 at 3:57 pm and is filed under Field Trips. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.