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My family had planned a day trip to Fort Myers so I took advantage of the ride and was dropped off at the SR29 entrance of Bear Island. I bicycled along Bear Island Grade & Perocchi Grade to the main Bear Island Campground (just under 9 miles) and then just a bit east of that area to do some botanizing in an area that seemed to have been burned in the last year. I didn't have a ton of time and so really mostly focused on plants!

All of my observations from today: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?on=2023-11-25&order=asc&place_id=2348&user_id=joemdo

This is a plant that I’m becoming convinced is separate from the P. norvegicum of roadsides, vacant lots, etc. because it has a number of differences when compared to the species found in ruderal places. I’ve seen it in alder & cedar swamps, lakeshore thickets, and sedge meadows up north where it looks native, especially because there are often no other non-native plants around. This population is at the bottom of an algific talus slope with other plants of high quality wetlands, including some rarities like Ribes hudsonianum.

Site of herbarium collection - very cool disjunct record and a super distinctive willow. Note large leaves; strongly red petioles, midveins, and new foliage (which becomes glabrous); rounded to cordate leaf bases; hairy yellow new twigs; large stipules

Was a bit interesting to scour all the thickets near the river mouth without luck then find this species growing on the rock pile under the bridge. Traits of "f. psila" and typical form intergraded on this individual, which was interesting. And problematic.

"A form with the leaves glabrate beneath, and often with twigs scarcely if at all glaucous [f. psila C. K. Schneid.] is frequent along the north shore of Lake Superior in Ontario and has been collected on the upper beach of Lake Superior in Luce Co." (https://michiganflora.net/species.aspx?id=2635)