Studies of the Byron Bog in Southwestern Ontario: I. Description of the Bog

Abstract

The Byron Bog is a sphagnum bog situated about three miles west of London and one mile northeast of Byron, Ontario in a depression adjacent to the southwest corner of Oxford Street and Hyde Park Sideroad in London Township of Middlesex County (Fig. 1). During the past it has been variously designated as “The Spruce Swamp”, “Foster's Bog” and “Redmond's (sometimes erroneously spelled “Redman's”) Swamp” or “Redmonds' Bog” Woolverton (1900) described it briefly in an account of a trip to the bog by members of the Geological Section of the Entomological Society of Ontario in 1899: “A number of the members of the section visited a peat bed, situated 3 miles west of London at Redmond's farm. It lies in a low spot bordered by high hills on the east and north. Towards the south a barrier not more than a few feet in height isolates it from the River Thames. In the centre is a pond of clear spring water over 60 feet in depth…” The bog has attracted the attention of local naturalists, particularly members of the McIlwraith Ornithological Club of London, who have studied various features of its fauna and flora, e.g. Dearness (19071, Judd (1956a), Saunders (1932) and Saunders and Dale (1933).