﻿202 Nichols: The vegetation of Connecticut 



elsewhere,(FiG.i5) the plant which fringes the water's edge andforms 

 theskeleton for the advancing mat is thecassandra. The extension 

 outward into the open water is slow when dependent on this 

 plant, and the mat is usually thick and firm out to its very edge. 

 At Bailey Pond, Voluntown, is a remarkable submersed mat, 

 some ten feet wide, composed entirely of the rhizomes of the fern 

 Woodwardia virginica. Floating logs, sticks and similar debris 

 doubtless contribute their quota to the formation of the raft; 

 while sometimes great patches of rhizome-permeated muck break 

 loose from the bottom of a pond, rise to its surface, and furnish a 

 substratum favorable for the rapid spread of sedges and other mat 

 forming plants.* 



Ecological Relations, Origin, and Distribution of Bogs 

 Bogs Compared with Ordinary Swamps. — A BoG may be defined 

 as a fresh water swamp characterized, especially in the shrub stage, 

 by an abundance of xerophytic plants. It might well be desig- 

 nated a Xerophytic Swamp. In Connecticut, so far as known, 

 bogs are always developed in morainal depressions. This type of 

 swamp, by reason of its unique vegetation, the ecological problems 

 involved, and the economic value of the frequently underlying peat 

 deposits, has probably received more attention at the hands of in- 

 vestigators than all other swamp types put together. In com- 

 paring the plant associations encountered in a lake-bog succession 

 with those in an ordinary lake-swamp series, the first appreciable 

 differences are perceived in the sedge stage, while the departure 

 of the two types from one another becomes very pronounced in 

 the shrub and tree stages. From a floristic standpoint, Connec- 

 ticut bog vegetation is unique because of the predominance of 

 ericaceous shrubs, the prevalence of black spruce {Picea mariana) 

 and other boreal species otherwise absent from this region, the 

 presence of bizarre forms like the pitcher plant {Sarracenia pur- 

 purea) and the sundews (Drosera rotundifolia and Drosera longi- 

 folia), and the usually luxuriant development of Sphagna. Eco- 

 logically, the most interesting problems relate to the phenomenon 

 of bog xerophytism. 



