HABITATS

Natural History, March, 1999

Bog vegetation is typified by sphagnum, which is accompanied by grass pink orchid, purple pitcher plant, round-leaved sundew, snowberry, three-leaved false Solomon's-seal, and a variety of tiny sedges. Growing in small pools of standing water are yellow-flowering bladderwort and the water lily-like spatterdock. Stunted trees black spruce and larch--also appear, along with a number of low-growing shrubs, such as sweet fern (of the wax myrtle family), bog rosemary, Labrador tea, cloudberry, crowberry, and a low-bush blueberry.

Salt marsh plants include salt marsh cordgrass, salt meadow cordgrass, tall cordgrass, and Gerard's rush. The salty inlet along Kelly's Beach Trail harbors several species of cordgrass as well as salt grass, seaside goldenrod, sea lavender, sea rocket, a saltwater plantain, pickleweed, and bacopa, a little blue-flowering plant in the snapdragon family.

Dune plants include beach sweet pea, beach heather, beach wormwood, and the ubiquitous milfoil, or yarrow. The roots of the large marram grass are extremely important in stabilizing the sand dunes because this plant, which appears in clumps, can often grow in places where no other vegetation succeeds.

Two species of birds that nest in the sand are managed by park personnel to ensure their continued presence. One is the common tern, which is experiencing competition from gulls, and the other is the piping plover, an endangered North American species.

Beaver wetland plants include cattail, pussy willow, swamp candles (a yellow loosestrife with candelabra-like flower clusters), horehound, blue iris, white-fringed orchid, perfoliate boneset, halberd leaved tearthumb, and blue joint grass.

Boreal forest consists of balsam fir, red spruce, hemlock, and white cedar over a shrubby layer of speckled alder and raisin tree viburnum. In the shade beneath the woody plants are bunchberry, bluebead lily, Canada mayflower, interrupted fern, cinnamon fern, and a variety of sedges.

Red spruce-balsam fir forest also contains striped maple, white birch, hemlock, red maple, and American beech. Shrubs include red elderberry and the evergreen spreading yew. Among the wildflowers are pink lady's-slipper orchid, trillium, twinleaf, wild sarsaparilla, and starflower.