|
Field
Trips > NW
Region >
Cedar Bog
Time stands still at Cedar Bog, with a landscape that looks just as it was thousands of years ago after the last great glacier of the Ice Age disappeared. Cedar Bog is actually not a bog, but a fen – a wetland with ground water that rises to the surface then flushes out of the wetland through several small streams.
Cedar Bog is the only fen in Ohio that is still surrounded with northern white cedar. These trees, plus sedges, shrubs and other wetland plants normally found far to the north, prosper here because of a steady stream of cool
water that continues to rise to the surface. This water, sweetened by its flow through hundreds of
feet of gravel deposits, is vital to the existence of Cedar Bog an its inhabitants, including uncommon
species like the massasauga rattlesnake, spotted turtle, Milbert's tortoise-shell butterfly, and the
showy lady's slipper orchids.
A mile-plus long boardwalk guides the visitor through this preserve of Ohio's recent to Ice Age
past. Mastodons probably fed here, and all of the Indian cultures of Ohio lived around here.
Cedar Bog is one of more than fifty sites operated by the Ohio Historical Society. The Ohio
Historical Society is a private, nonprofit organization that serves as the state's partner in
preserving and interpreting Ohio's history, archaeology, and natural history.
FIELD TRIPS > NORTHWEST REGION SITES:
|