TTHHEE BBOOGG HHAAUUNNTTEERR the newsletter of the Friends of the Cedarburg Bog Volume 4, Number 3 Summer, 2009

IN THE STRING BOG’S WATER How do they cope? Life in the “poor fen, the Cedarburg Bog is not The center of the Cedarburg Bog Cedarburg Bog isn’t for sissies. The mineral-rich. wetland is occupied by a string bog, leaves of bog plants may have fewer also called a “patterned bog” or a pores (stomata), limiting water loss. Its pH, overall, is neutral (around 7) “ribbed fen.” It is characterized by Leaves may be small and thick, or to slightly alkaline. Within the string alternating low, wet swales, packed they may have waxy coverings, bog, the mounds of sphagnum moss with sedges and wildflowers, and undersides that are coated with are acidic, as are the decaying cedar raised strings - slightly dryer ridges hairs, or edges that are curled under and tamarack needles on the raised of peat that support stunted to ensure that when water is strings; but overall the “hard” tamarack and white cedar. With absorbed by their roots, it is not groundwater seeping in keeps the each step you take toward the center easily lost through the leaves. wetland from turning acidic. Most of the Bog, the plants you pass are Similar adaptations are found in days, the word “current” would be an increasingly challenged by their desert plants. exaggeration. environment. The string bog is home to a variety Springs contribute only a small For plants, the paradoxes of life in of carnivorous plants. Purple pitcher amount of the water held in the Bog, the string bog are two. First, they plants, round-leaved and the very but their water is high in minerals, grow in peat, the semi-decayed rare linear-leaved sundews, and five and its influence on the water remains of hundreds of generations species of bladderworts grow here. chemistry is huge. Precipitation is of bog plants (the Bog started filling These “meat-eaters” supplement the slightly acid, and the pH of the Bog with dead plants as the glaciers nutrients they can get from soil and water will be mildly acidic after a big retreated), but recycled nutrients are water with minerals from the tiny rainfall or snowmelt, but the not readily available. Second, invertebrates they digest. buffering effect of spring water will although they grow “with their feet return the pH to neutral within a few in the water,” these plants have weeks. difficulty absorbing it. Plants in and around the Bog The common factor is oxygen, or the produce an exuberance of potential lack of it. Oxygen levels in the offspring. Seeds abound - airborne, waterlogged peat are low-to-non- hitchhiking on the coats of coyotes, existent. The primary mechanisms carried in the guts of birds. Each for mixing air into water, currents fall, Blue jays gather acorns and and the action of wind over the beech nuts from the beech woods surface, don’t work when the water True bogs get their water only from and fly east over the bog to cache is kept still by the sponge-like peat. precipitation and run-off from them – somewhere. Many bacteria and the invertebrates surrounding lands. They have no that are responsible for the outlet, so they have no current. Since most seeds carry a starter breakdown of organic matter need Often mineral-poor, the slow supply of food for their embryos, oxygen. Low oxygen levels result in decomposition of plants in their they may have enough energy to a pokey rate of decomposition. stalled waters produces acidic root and grow in the Bog for a while. conditions. One professor calls these “hopefuls” Root hairs, like those slender “hairs” that survive for a few years in the on the side of a carrot, are the only The Cedarburg Bog is a “fen” not a wrong habitat “the living dead.” The part of the root that absorbs water bog because in addition to rain and true bog specialists will persist in the and minerals. As oxygen decreases, snow, it gets some groundwater challenging conditions of the string fewer root hairs are produced, which, seeping in from springs, and an bog because they can. in turn, restricts water uptake. Out outlet stream in its southwest corner of necessity, the roots of most bog provides drainage. The definition of FOCB STEWARDS plants are shallow – restricted to the fens often specifies that sedges and Want to help? Please contact oxygenated layer of the peat. other non-woody plants are the [email protected] or call 262-675- dominant vegetation, and that the 6844 to find out what projects are in The same deficiency limits the kinds water contains magnesium and the works and how you can help the and the locations of aquatic animals calcium compounds. Classified as a Friends with stewardship and other that occur here. projects.

IF YOU (RE)BUILD IT….. barrels installed in the ‘80s, so at assistance. The Guard choppers It has taken 11 years, $25,000 worth just $8 apiece we decided to replace returned in May 2008 to remove of materials, a pair of Black Hawk them all,” Reinartz said. By the end the last of the old railroad ties helicopters and as many as 2,000 of 2002, the project reached all the and other boardwalk materials hours of volunteer labor, but the way to the second island. It would from the East Island. rebuilding of the Cedarburg Bog resume five years later in the fall of boardwalk has been completed. 2007 with work on the last section **The volunteers who donated “The last of the loop is completed, so east of East Island. 1,500 to 2,000 hours of free I guess we can finally say we are labor. They were drawn from the done,” said Jim Reinartz, director of ranks of the Friends, the Field the University of Wisconsin- Station volunteer list, the Milwaukee Field Station located at Riveredge Habitat Healers and the 2,500-acre mosaic of wetlands the Sierra Club. and shallow lakes. “We still have a few teaching platforms to add over Looking back on the more than the course of the summer, but that’s decade-long project, Reinartz says all that’s left.” he remains happy with the decision to do all the work “in-house.” “Going

The Cedarburg Bog is one of the through such a sensitive area, we largest and most diverse wetlands in There were several critical parts to wanted to be the contractor so we southern Wisconsin. At its heart lies the project’s success: could be very fussy about our the southernmost string bog in North impact. We could recognize and America. This type of patterned **The Friends of the Cedarburg protect a particularly valuable little vegetation typically is found in the Bog handled the fundraising for hummock that a teacher has used to large peat lands of northern Canada. the project. “The total cost for show some rare plant or a But without the three-quarter-mile materials was $25,000, but only microcosm of the bog world.” long boardwalk and trail that span a 10% of that was state-funded,” series of wetlands, connect the bog’s Reinartz said. “We didn’t have to Boardwalk by the Numbers upland rim to two islands, and then ask the taxpayers. Instead it Volunteer hours for construction: loops through the center of a state was the generous donations of 1,500 to 2,000 natural area, scientists and the the people who use and Number of deck screws: public would have little access. The appreciate the bog.” 15,000 bog is home to more than 35 higher Number of bolts: plant species and 19 species of **Leading the way were some 1,100 breeding birds that reach or are near 85 friends and family of the late Weight of material airlifted into bog: the southern extent of their range in Don Bezella who donated to a 19,000 pounds Wisconsin. memorial fund commemorating Estimated life of new boardwalk: Don and his love for the bog. On 30-40 years The new boardwalk is actually the September 14, 2008, a bog’s third. The first one was built in dedication was held at the -- By Carl Schwartz 1970, using railroad ties and steel Friends’ annual meeting to erect drums to keep the planks afloat atop a special sign a half-mile out in PHRAGMITES - COMMON REED the bog’s watery mat of peat. Over the bog. The Friends also We’ve all seen them growing in the years, field station staff and secured a Bezadny Grant from roadside ditches, clumps of grass, volunteers replaced every plank and the state Natural Resources head-high and taller, topped by barrel – switching to plastic barrels Foundation. feathery, reddish seed heads. in the mid 1980s. Despite the showy seeds, they **The friends were able to colonize by sending out dense, But as the heavier-than-water old arrange for 21 Army National interlocking suckers that can extend railroad ties continued to sink away Guard personnel and two Black up to 50 feet in a year, and the when they broke through the mat, a Hawk helicopters from the 1st impenetrable stands they produce decision was made in 1998 to Battalion, 147th Aviation Unit out crowd out native plants. Phragmites literally start over and re-engineer of Madison (along with four or Common Reed (Phragmites australis the boardwalk. members of the West Bend or P. communis) is a cosmopolitan Guard unit’s 832nd Medical plant found in North America, Asia, “We really did not have an Company) to lift in 56 12-foot- Europe. It is both native and alien. acceptable model,” Reinartz said. long boardwalk sections, 75 “What we have now with the new plastic barrels to support the outrigger system is entirely our own boardwalk in water, pre-built design.” And this time, the saddles for the barrels that boardwalk would be a complete would attach to the top sections, replacement utilizing new plastic and the planks. "It would be barrels and pressure-treated lumber impossible for us to carry all the designed to survive 30-40 years in materials out there," Reinartz contact with water. “The bung caps said in explaining why he had deteriorated on the plastic requested the National Guard's

It has a long history of human use, cranberry plants, and the caterpillars It has an extensive history of from arrow shafts to insulation to emerge to feed in spring. They medicinal uses. Scharbock, it’s food. The Dutch plant it to draw pupate in June and the adults German common name, comes from down water in lands they reclaim typically fly in July. the Latin scorbutus referring to from the ocean, and a Phragmites- scurvy. Europeans use it for the thatched roof lasts 60 years. It has treatment of rheumatism, gout, and always been plentiful in the brackish an assortment of other ills. marshes where land meets sea, and has become more common in However, that is not is most freshwater habitats inland, especially interesting characteristic. The roots in fens. Native Americans in our and stems of the buckbean are area made berry-drying frames from specialized for its aquatic habitat. it, but didn’t use it for much simply The stem is filled with aerenchyma, a because there wasn’t much of it to These are the smallest of the specialized ground or filler tissue that use. Coppers, with wingspans measuring is filled with holes. It appears just under an inch. From the top, spongy under the microscope. This About a century ago, a more their wings look indigo/reddish- arrangement helps the stem float aggressive form of Common Reed bronze with a few darker spots. and as a storage area for oxygen landed on American shores, possibly Their underwings range from pale produced during photosynthesis. another hitchhiker in the ballast of amber to silvery-blue, decorated European ships. A chart comparing with a variety of spots and chevrons. the two forms can be found at When they sit with wings folded near http://www.invasiveplants.net/phrag the leaves of a bog birch, they are mites/morphology.htm well camouflaged.

In A Book of Swamp and Bog (an Adults may feed on nectar from a excellent resource), John Eastman few nearby flowers in the Aster reports that research is being done family, but Bog Coppers seldom in the mid-Atlantic states to find stray far from cranberry plants. native plants aggressive enough to They range from Newfoundland west act as “Phrag-blockers” in coastal to Manitoba, south to Minnesota and marshes. back east across the northern tiers of Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania, to The roots have large spaces, called The String Bog hosts the native New Jersey. They may be locally lacuna, which also store oxygen variety of Reed, but the invasive common – present in small colonies supplied by the leaves. These form can be found along road edges in favorable habitat – but they are spaces allow oxygen to get to the on its north edge. Considering how becoming more scarce in the western root tips, so buckbean has a deeper little of the Bog is accessible, control part of their range. root system than many bog plants. will be impossible if the invasive At night, the plant utilizes this form reaches the Bog’s interior. WISH LIST ITEMS oxygen for respiration. Pots, pans and bowls in good By Chris Fredrich JOIN US condition and especially those Members of the Friends of the suitable for cooking for and serving Join us for the Cedarburg Bog who are interested in large groups. Friends Annual Meeting serving on the Friends’ Board of & Potluck Directors are invited to contact BEAUTIFUL BLOOMER Secretary Kate Redmond by mail at The striking white flowering stalks of the Field Station address. the bogbean or buck bean Sept 27, 3 – 6:30 p.m. (Menyanthes trifoliata) bloom in May. 3:00 – hikes BOG COPPER It’s buds are pink before they open 5:30 – eats The Cedarburg Bog boasts a number into lovely bearded flowers with a 6:00 – campfire & very short meeting of “Bog Specialties” – resident plants tube shaped corolla ending in five and animals that are threatened or lobes. The leaves are divided into rare; plants at the far southern edge three leaflets and persist through the We supply brats, buns and beverage. of their range, birds that typically growing season. breed in Canada, yet call the Bog If your last name starts with A to M, home; and habitat specialists that Bogbean, or common buck bean is a Please bring a side dish to share. simply can’t live anywhere else. member of its own family – the Buckbean Family, or Menyanthaceae. If your last name starts with N to Z, One of these specialists is a small It’s also known as marsh trefoil, Please bring a dessert to share. butterfly called the Bog Copper water shamrock, or marsh clover. It (Lycaena epixanthe). Typically a is found in the northern United denizen of acid bogs, it is found here States, Canada, and Europe in Please RSVP at 262-675-2443 or because its caterpillar feeds only on shallow water as an emergent herb. [email protected] wild cranberry. Bog Coppers over- winter in the egg stage, on or under

CALENDAR Fee: Riveredge Member: $30; Non- FRIENDS EVENT - Bird Banding FRIENDS EVENT Bird Walk member: $40. Demonstration July 5, 6:50 – 10: a.m. Riveredge Nature Center, Newburg August 29, 7 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. Bird the upland woods and the Join Master bird banders Al Sherkow boardwalk. UWM Field Station Ozaukee-Washington Land Trust Fish and Debbie Hartman for a banding and Steak Dinner demonstration at the start of the fall Riveredge Speaks Out August 16, 3 p.m. Walk; migration. July 21, 7:00 - 8:15 p.m. 4 p.m. Social hour, Silent Auction; Registration appreciated, please “Ecology Underground – the Hidden 5:30 p.m. Dinner (locally grown). contact [email protected] or call Life of the Soil.” At the Cedarburg Music by Sawdust Symphony. 262-675-6844. UWM Field Station. Cultural Center. Other dates for this For information or to register, series of ecology programs: Aug. 18, contact [email protected] or 1-262- FRIENDS EVENT - Sky Spying Sept. 15, and Oct. 1. For topics and 338-1794 or download registration September 11, 8:00 p.m. locations, contact 1-800-287-8098 or materials from www.owlt.org. Explore the night sky at the UWM www.riveredge.us . Forest Beach Migratory Preserve Field Station with guides from the A $5 donation is suggested. 4970 Country Club Road, Port Northern Cross Science Washington Foundation. View planets, nebula, Counting Insects at Riveredge galaxies, and other celestial Come for all or part of the day. objects thru a variety of telescopes Butterfly Count Please register at 262-675-6844 or July 11, 9:30 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. [email protected] UWM Field (butterfly review at 8:30) Station. A $3 fee is suggested. Dragonfly Count Quarterly Board Meeting August 8, 9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. July 16, 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. Bluegrass and Brats - This Old Barn Grasshopper Count Friends of the Cedarburg Bog, September 18, 6 p.m. Food, August 29, 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. Members welcome. 7:30 p.m. Concert. Concert tickets Registration is required. At: UW-M Field Station. $12. Food tickets are separate. For more information or to register, At Lac Lawrann Conservancy, 300 contact Mary Holleback at Sci-Tech Edventures—Two-Day Schmidt Road, West Bend [email protected] or 1-800-287- Camps 12:30 – 5 p.m. 8098. $5 donation suggested. August, 4 & 5, “Let’s make a DVD FRIENDS EVENT – Annual Meeting about Forest Beach!”(grade 3 – 8) Riveredge Nature Center, Newburg September 27, 3 – 6:30 p.m. August 11 & 12, “Let’s Make a Book See invitation on inside page. Prairie Day About Forest Beach!”

July 15, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. Forest Beach Migratory Preserve FRIENDS EVENT - Fungi of the A day of walks and workshops on 4970 Country Club Road, Port Field Station’s Beech-Maple Forest prairie topics. Lunch is available. Washington For information or to October 3, 1:00 – 4:00 p.m. Registration required. For register, contact 1-262-338-1794 or Please register at 262-675-6844 or information or to register, call 1-800- [email protected]. [email protected]. UWM Field 287-8098, or visit www.riveredge.us. Station. A $3 fee is suggested.