East Texas bogs

East Texas bogs contain vegetation adapted to acidic soils, including carnivorous plants such as the pitcher plant and sundew (right)

Bogs or seeps occur in East Texas where water sinks through porous sand soils and then hits an impermeable clay layer, causing water to seep out to the surface. Leaching of the saturated soils creates acid conditions. These acid bogs or acid seeps are usually open and grassy and are rich in plant species, especially grasses and sedges. Like longleaf wetland savannas, they are habitats for unusual plants such as orchids, wild ferns, sphagnum moss, and the four kinds of carnivorous plants that occur in Texas.

Most bogs are small in area and are vulnerable to the detrimental effects of logging and to changes in the aquifers that support them. Many examples, even in nature preserves, have become overgrown with brush in the absence of natural fires. Some of the bestknown bogs in Texas, including the Ottine Swamp in Gonzales County, are not protected in conservation areas. Many bogs are located in the Angelina National Forest (especially in the "Longleaf Ridge" area), but are not currently protected from logging, grazing, and other activities that could threaten the viability of these unusual places.

Beech and magnolia trees grow in baygall swamps of southeast Texas.

Baygalls and forested seeps

Where conditions are right, seepfed creeks that drain East Texas bogs spill into forested swamps called baygalls which are thick with evergreen shrubs such as hollies and magnolias. Decaying vegetation creates very acid soils which support unusual

Forested bogs shelter rare, unprotected plants such as Texas trillium.

plants such as epiphytes, wild azaleas, ferns, orchids, and the endangered Texas trillium. These diverse communities reach their highest levels of diversity in the Big Thicket area of southeast Texas, where they fill depressions in river floodplains. There, baygalls may contain large areas of standing water in which baldcypress, gum, and holly trees grow, covered with ferns and epiphytes. These communities are usually small and only occur in a few parts of East Texas; only a few examples have been conserved by conservation groups. Many more sites are threatened by logging and by alteration to local watersheds. More of these areas deserve to be protected.

Places to see East Texas bogs: Protected Acreage of Bays and Baygalls in Texas: Engeling Wildlife Management Area, Palestine Less than 1,000 acres Upland Island Wilderness Area, Zavalla   Turkey Creek Unit and Jack Gore Baygall Units of Big Thicket National Preserve, Kountze