Steve Young, New York Natural Heritage Program – During our last week of searching Steuben and Allegany Counties for the federally threatened Northeastern Bulrush we did not find any additional populations but we encountered good habitat dominated by other plants.
This marsh was fairly deep and dominated by Carex comosa and cattails.
Downstream the marsh turned into a pond with clumps of pickerel-weed in duckweed.
Another vernal wetland in Steuben County is dominated by grasses.
Some wetlands looked good on the aerial photos but turned out to be dug ponds. David Werier looking disappointed.
This round vernal wetland looked like it had an excellent chance of containing bulrush but was dominated by Carex gynandra.
Another excellent candidate but this time it was dominated by Carex tuckermanii. It was a new species for Steve Daniel (on the right).
In a state forest in Allegany County the dominant plant in the small wetland was Calamagrostis canadensis.
The last little wetland I searched was dominated by turtle-heads, one of the biggest populations of this plant I have seen.
Here is a closeup of the inflorescence with flowers and buds.
So we still only have one population of Northeastern Bulrush in the state but we remain optimistic that more can be found in the Southern Tier. Rob Naczi of the New York Botanical Garden searched wetlands in Eastern New York near Vermont but did not find any additional populations either. As they say in sports, “Better luck next year!”