Thanks to all for the comments! Macranthos, thanks for the info and for pix of the blooms. While this bog is only about 45 minutes from my house, it is a challenge to visit so I have missed the blooms while they still have petals. This is a place you truly have to be prepared to visit - LOTS of mosquitos and poison ivy. Walking through some of the areas are difficult and you must stay to the trail. And even though I prepared well, on my last visit I still got a tick bite. Given we have Lyme Disease spread by deer ticks here, bites are a dangerous thing. All in all, I still visit every couple of years. As special as it is, my last visit made me sad. Fewer of the special species. More changes to the bog areas. The peat area had more blueberry, aronia, and eastern white pine in it. These species herald the changes happening. The draining and harvesting of peat outside of the preserve is killing the bog. These acid loving woody plants will fill in if left unchecked and the special stuff will vanish. The floating bog, which I hiked to the edge of, is being taken over by Phragmites australis. This plant is a plague and a pestilence in my region. The ubiquitous cattail is becoming more rare to see. Huge stands of monoculture Phragmites has replaced what was cattail habitats in so many places. Note: the floating bog has grasses not cattails making it up. The floating bog is actually a living mat of vegetation over a large pond and probably a deep one. Just for reference, ponds here might be called "lakes" in other parts of the US as I live in one of the most lake-rich regions of the US featuring both the Finger Lakes and the Great Lakes. While the plight of the polar bear and other beleaguered animal species are terrible indeed, I feel the plant kingdom is under even worse threats. Threats that are invisible and unknown to most of the world but here so clearly on display in places like the bog for "plant people" like you and me to see. So please skip the peat in your pots and gardens. FataMorgana From the last trip......Phragmites, native grasses, spent pitcher plant blooms, and labrador tea (if I recall correctly) in the edge of the floating bog. (I sunk into peat up past one knee nearly loosing my boot to get this picture!)

Macranthos, I've been considering the inclusion of maps with some posts, because they provide species distributions without people having to click on a link. But I was unaware of the requirements for doing that. Your map reminded me to find out what the policies were for sharing Weakley, BONAP, and USDA information. Weakley and BONAP were fine with snips, as long as credit is provided. If USDA follows that trend, then we'll just need to crop in the top map portion that shows it came from their NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service) group. I'll let you know if/when they respond. And as others have said, those are very cool photos, and your posts are both informative and entertaining. Keep them coming!

I found one more picture in my folder. One year, the culvert next to where the green form grows was dredged: the crown was missed by a foot... I still haven't been back to inspect the plants. I reported it to blm to hopefully save the plants from some death by metal claw in the future. Some of the flowers were dislodged by the process and I took this picture for scale. They're really quite small.

Mac, the Jepson Herbarium (University of Calif., Berkeley) has published a decent key for Collomia. If you click on the species links, you'll see details for each one, including flowering times, county distributions, expected elevation, and an ecology statement about where they are typically found (i.e. shaded areas near streams in woodlands, etc.).