bog

bog¹

—boggish, adj.

/bog, bawg/, n., v., bogged, bogging.

n.

1. wet, spongy ground with soil composed mainly of decayed vegetable matter.

2. an area or stretch of such ground.

v.t., v.i.

3. to sink in or as if in a bog (often fol. by down): We were bogged down by overwork.

4. bog in, Australian Slang. to eat heartily and ravenously.

[1495-1505; < Ir or ScotGael bogach soft ground (bog soft + -ach n. suffix); (def. 4) perh. a different word]

bog²

/bog, bawg/, n. Usually, bogs. Brit. Slang.

a lavatory; bathroom.

[1780-90; prob. shortening of bog-house; cf. bog to defecate, boggard (16th century) privy, of obscure orig.]

* * *

▪ wetland

      type of wetland ecosystem characterized by wet, spongy, poorly drained peaty soil. Bogs can be divided into three types: (1) typical bogs of cool regions, dominated by the growth of bog mosses (peat moss), Sphagnum, and heaths (heath), particularly Chamaedaphne (northern bogs with trees growing on them are often called muskegs); (2) fens (fen), dominated by grasslike plants, grasses, sedges, and reeds; and (3) tropical tree bogs, in which the peat may be formed almost entirely from tree remains. Typical, or Sphagnum, bogs are highly acid with a pH (index of acidity–alkalinity) of less than five (seven being neutral) and are associated with waters containing no more minerals than are contained in rainwater, often the only source of water for a bog. Fens are watered with groundwater that has some dissolved minerals and that has a pH above five; that is, it is only moderately acid. Fens and bogs are often associated in one area that usually is called a bog. Tropical bogs occur only in areas where the water is very low in minerals. They are less common than swamps but still cover extensive areas in Malaya, Indonesia, tropical South America, and Africa.

      Typical bogs have simple floras. Other than the Sphagnums and heaths, there are a few sedges and grasses, such as cotton grass; insectivorous sundews; pitcher plants; and many orchids. Desmids (desmid), a group of unicellular green algae divided into symmetrical halves, are characteristic of bogs. Animals are not common on bogs.

      Sphagnums are large mosses with large empty cells with pores opening to the outside that lie between the chlorophyll-bearing cells of the leaves. These empty cells readily absorb and retain water, giving a spongelike quality to the moss. Sphagnum absorbs minerals (cations) from the water, replacing them with acid (hydrogen ions), and thus makes the water around itself more acid.

      The saturation of the moss with water retards passage of air, so that parts of a mass of Sphagnum more than a few inches from the surface are usually anoxic. The combination of lack of oxygen, lack of minerals, and highly acid condition greatly retards the action of bacteria and fungi, the usual decay organisms. With the retardation of decomposition of the dead moss, a Sphagnum peat develops under the living plants. This is particularly the case in areas where there is a mean annual temperature of below 10° C (50° F), which also retards decay.

      Bogs are most common in parts of the world glaciated during the Pleistocene Epoch (10,000 to 2,500,000 years ago). They cover vast areas in the tundra and boreal forest regions of Canada, northern Europe, and Russia. Areas of high rainfall farther to the south, such as the wetter parts of the British Isles, also contain extensive bogs. Glacial ice created many local depressions by scouring underlying rocks and spreading an uneven deposit of till on the ground. With the melting of the ice, these depressions filled with water. If the mineral content of the water was low, the ponds so formed were colonized by Sphagnum, which converted them to bogs.

      Once bogs are formed, they retard the development of efficient drainage by inhibiting water movement and slowing erosion of the soil or rocks on which they rest. Thus, bogs tend to be long-lived if temperatures remain low and sufficient excess of rainfall over evaporation exists to prevent their drying out. If they do dry out, upland plants will colonize the former bog.

      Small lakes (lake) in glaciated regions have also often developed into bogs if they were not drained by headward erosion of stream beds or completely filled with terrestrial sediments. The lake begins to fill by the development of a floating mat of vegetation next to the shore. This may become a fen, with grasses and sedges principally involved, if the lake water has sufficient mineral content. A lake on resistant rocks, poor in minerals, will develop a floating bog mat with Sphagnum and Chamaedaphne. In larger lakes, wave action will not allow such floating mats to develop.

      As the mat grows into the water, it floats at the surface supported by air in the plant tissues. Upward growth shades the lower parts and these die, forming an increasingly thick floating mat, the top of which remains only a few inches above the level of the lake surface. Slow decay and mechanical disturbances break off waterlogged bits from the bottom of the mat. These sink and collect on the lake bottom so that the lake is filled from both the bottom up and the top down. The material collecting on the lake bottom is very fine, only a little denser than the water. It does not compact into a firm layer but forms a false bottom layer through which heavy objects fall to the solid original lake bottom.

      From the surface down, the layers are (1) floating bog, (2) clear water, (3) false bottom, and (4) true bottom. With the continued thickening of the mat there is less influence of the lake water on plant growth, and Sphagnum usually begins to invade the surface of the mat even if it was previously dominated by grasses. With the growth of the moss a true bog is formed and various heaths invade the mat, especially Chamaedaphne. With continued thickening, trees may begin to grow, the first usually being larch (Larix). Black spruce may invade in the last stages of bog development. From a distance it may be difficult to detect the original boundary between the upland and the now filled lake.

      During much of this process the vegetation is floating. The bog is called a quaking bog to indicate the instability of the surface, which will sink slightly beneath a weight. It is even possible to break through the vegetation into the water beneath. Both people and animals have drowned this way. Nonfloating bogs may also quake if the peat is thick and spongy.

      Ultimately, by upward and centripetal growth, the bog fills the lake completely. The original glacial basin will then contain a bottom layer of inorganic sediment combined with organic debris derived both from lake production and from terrestrial sources surrounding the lake. On top of that, a layer of false-bottom material, compacted by the weight of overlying peat, may be visible. Bog peat fills the remainder of the basin. Growth of the bog does not necessarily stop at this stage for, if rainfall is sufficient, the water-retaining properties of Sphagnum are sufficient to maintain a wet, stagnant environment above the original water table represented by the lake surface. Thus, continued upward growth of the bog plants creates a raised bog. The raised bog is similar to the ordinary bog except that it does not lie in a depression but is raised above the surroundings. A moat containing some open water typically surrounds a raised bog where water drains from the raised bog and surrounding upland. Because the moat receives upland drainage it may be a fen. The raised bog itself receives only rainwater. Because rain is very low in mineral content, the raised bog is more completely dominated by the characteristics of Sphagnum than that of the floating bog. Heaths, larches, and black spruce, which grow fairly well on the floating bog, survive only as stunted specimens around the edges of the raised bog.

      The peat underlying a Sphagnum bog is composed largely of partly decomposed moss. There may be some inclusion of windblown particles, pollen, and dust. The water content of peat may be as high as 90 percent. The ash content of dried peat varies from 2 to 20 percent, with lower values more usual because the higher ash amounts come from sand and clay blown into the peat when it was at the surface. Other chemical characteristics of peat underlying bogs are the absence of free oxygen; the presence of carbon dioxide at high pressure, though in small amounts; low electrolyte concentration; and high acidity.

      In general, temperatures in lowland tropical areas are high enough for organic decay to be too fast for large quantities of peat to accumulate. But in areas with very high rainfall and with groundwater of very low mineral content, bogs may occur. As is the case in colder regions, the bogs may fill low basins, or they may develop into raised bogs. The plants of these bogs are mainly broad-leaved evergreen trees, which may be as tall as 100 feet (30 metres). Palms and screwpines may also occur. The number of kinds of plants of these bogs is very limited in comparison with the surrounding forests, just as is the case in colder bogs. Toward the centre of the raised bogs, trees are shorter or absent. Grasses and sedges cover more of the ground and open pools of water may occur. Sphagnum does not grow in tropical bogs to any extent, and the peat is composed of the remains of seed plants. The limited number of species is caused entirely by the lack of any groundwater supply of minerals and the rapid removal, by heavy rainfall, of those that arrive in dust.

* * *