This is an image that I’ve been trying to get for over two decades.

The picture shows a couple of wetland habitats. The area nearest the camera is the seep of a habitat known as a fen. As the name suggests, the seep is where water seeps from the gravel hill located behind the camera. (You can see a similar hill in the far distance.) This is a hanging fen because the seep is backed up against a hill.

The small stream that emerges from the seep (near the top) feeds into another wetland habitat, known as a sedge meadow, where the dominant plants are, well, sedges. The term “meadow” can be misleading. I envision a lush field of grass and flowers where you can hold a picnic and frolic in the afternoon sun. But if you tried that here, you’d likely need rescuing after you and your checkered tablecloth got stuck in magnetic mud.

The gravel gives the water a high alkaline content, but not every plant can tolerate that kind of chemistry. Flowers are often uncommon or rare. Here we have Ohio goldenrod, sphynx lady tresses orchid (the two spikes of white flowers), and Grass-of-Parnassus (the whitish flowers sprinkled throughout the seep).