Name:
Dasiphora fruticosa - Carex lasiocarpa Eastern Boreal Alkaline Fen Group
Reference:
NatureServe Biotics 2019
Description:
[The concept for this group is under review with Canadian ecologists; the current concept overlaps with ~Eastern North American Subboreal Alkaline Fen Group (G185)$$.] These fens, distributed across eastern boreal regions of North America, develop in open basins where lateral groundwater flow through circumneutral to calcareous parent materials creates moderately to strongly alkaline conditions. They are found on level to gently sloping surfaces, or in closed wet depressions (sometimes as floating mats), and along wetland margins and lakeshores and rivershores. The shore fens are occasionally flooded, and so are included here because flooding tends to create moderately alkaline conditions. The vegetation may be graminoid-dominated, shrub-dominated, or a patchwork of the two, with broad-leaved non-ericaceous shrubs typically dominant. There is a discontinuous to absent layer of <i>Sphagnum</i> peatmoss (<80% cover), with brown mosses (<i>Calliergon, Campylium, Drepanocladus, Tomentypnum</i>) present to dominant. Broad-leaved non-ericaceous shrubs (<i>Alnus incana, Betula glandulosa, Betula pumila, Dasiphora fruticosa ssp. floribunda, Myrica gale, Salix</i> spp.) exceed cover of ericaceous shrubs, although some shore fens may be dominated by <i>Chamaedaphne calyculata</i>. Thin-leaved graminoids include <i>Carex interior, Carex lasiocarpa, Carex limosa, Carex livida, Eriophorum viridicarinatum, Muhlenbergia glomerata</i>, and <i>Trichophorum alpinum</i>. In the tree layer, <i>Picea mariana</i> is rare to absent and <i>Larix laricina</i> is variable. Minerotrophic <i>Sphagnum</i> dominates the substrate among medium fens, but brown mosses become increasingly common under richer conditions. <i>Campylium stellatum</i> is an indicator brown moss bryophyte.
Accession Code:
urn:lsid:vegbank.org:commConcept:40373-{45560318-62F2-40CE-860B-5D5CDBFA8D9B}
Plot-observations of this Community Concept:
0
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