Browns Bog was a look into another world, an ancient foreign world. The ferns along the boardwalk grew to large proportions in the peaty, soft ground, reminding me of drawings of the landscape of the dinosaurs. The soft, cushiony ground seemed as though it would swallow you whole if you stepped in the wrong place, or ventured too far into the jungle of ferns. The moss on the rocks in the bog also seemed like it was from another world. The stars of moss looked like underwater creatures, like sea anemone, or starfish, clinging to the rock to avoid being washed away when the water left them abandoned in the sun of Ohio. The pitcher plants also seemed of another world, or at least a more tropical one. They looked like they should belong in the jungle, surrounded by leaves the size of a human head, colorful poison dart frogs, and flowers all the colors of the rainbow. Instead, they were dropped in a marshy bog, where they must endure frost, and layers of ice. Many of the plants in the bog looked like they belonged elsewhere, which made the environment of the bog especially interesting.
With all of these interesting, exotic plants along the boardwalk, leaving the boardwalk and following the other path was a clear divide, like stepping over a line back into normal Ohio environment. Leaves from oaks and maples once again littered the ground, no longer concealed by towering ferns. The ground was safe to walk on, without the risk of sinking knee deep into peaty soil.
The divide between the bog and the forest was evident, and it makes you wonder, if the plants keep encroaching on the bog and its little pond, eventually overtaking it, which area will it more resemble. Will it look like the exotic jungle of the forest along the boardwalk, or will it look like the leaf covered ground we are so used to seeing in Ohio and the Midwest? If we are lucky, it will stay exotic and tropical, continuing on as a window into another world.
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