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For the next week we will be visiting Ives Fen Preserve.  (http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/unitedstates/michigan/placesweprotect/ives-road-fen-preserve.xml)  It is a nature Conservancy preserve of 700 acrea along the River Raisin.  There  are fens, floodplain woods, and upland fields and forest.  There is also a played out gravel pit.  These pictures were all from the latter.  A gravel pit you say?  Don't scoff!  There are two ponds that are home to Blanchard's cricket frog, a Michigan threatened species.  I once suggested we need some fish in the ponds.  The frog guys were horrified.  The fish would eat the frog eggs!  To see the frog, (https://mnfi.anr.msu.edu/element-images/244.jpg).

Ohio goldenrod and it's flat topped brethren are sometimes segregated as the genus Oligoneuron.  It is one split that chemistry and computing have not seemed to settle.