Some of my favorite wild bog plants

[Hoy]

It is many kinds of bogs, of course, from the very wet Sphagnum mires to the rich swamps with a plethora of flowering plants.
Here are a few to start with - please feel free to add your plants!

In the sphagnum moss mires you can often find find a little drier areas and there the cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus) are growing in abundance. However, that don't mean you will have lots of berries to harvest! The plant is dioecious and spreads by runners so you find huge patches of clones of the same plant.


The first picture shows a typical cloudberry bog in an untypical Easter condition in the mountains. At this time of the year you expect it to be covered by 1/2 - 1m snow. The next pictures show a male and a female flower.

       


Also in wet areas both in sphagnum bogs and in richer soil you can find the lanky Marsh Cinquefoil (Potentilla (Comarum) palustris). The petals are rather small but have a nice colour. It is said that the colour of the redflowered strawberry plants is derived from crosses with this species. Anyway, the flowers are appreciated by bumblebees.

   


The Water Avens (Geum rivale) doesn't grow in the wettest bogs but often on soil seasonally saturated with water. You have to take a close look at the flower to see its beauty.

   

[RickR]

Sphagnum moss growing on top of a rise is very foreign to me.  It would always be too dry in my climate.  I remember in western Scotland, climbing to the top of a large hill, and I sat down to enjoy the view. I soon had a wet bottom!

I didn't know that any Rubus spp. had male and female plants!  Is Cloudberry woody or herbaceous?  Is that the predominant woody twigs I see?

[Hoy]

Sphagnum moss growing on top of a rise is very foreign to me.  It would always be too dry in my climate.  I remember in western Scotland, climbing to the top of a large hill, and I sat down to enjoy the view. I soon had a wet bottom!

I didn't know that any Rubus spp. had male and female plants!  Is Cloudberry woody or herbaceous?  Is that the predominant woody twigs I see?

Cloudberry is completely herbaceous. However, they produce long, thin perennial underground runners which send up new shoots. The old plants also have hidden buds that resprout each year. The "woody twigs" are dry sedges and grasses.

[cohan]

Some familiar and favourite plants- though the setting is unlike anything here-- there is no place (in my area- other parts of the province have totally different biomes) with such low vegetation unless it is mowed or heavily grazed! Cloudberry is on my wishlist- I think I may have sown some seeds, but nothing so far, unless I'm just forgetful (maybe, I did have some small Rubus babies last year...) I didn't realise the flowers were white, they'd look nice beside R arcticum..
Comarum is very common here, often in open woody wet areas, and Geum rivale grows from full sun to deep shade, wet to just sometimes moist...