The Dawning of the Age of Aquarius

 The study of the Arrowhead plant became serious - not Latin name serious, but rather field studies intensified seriously - on  Tuesday September 3, when a field botanist explained what I had noticed: the flowers on the West side were different from those on the East side:

 Flowers are whorled in groups of 3 in a spike-like raceme up to 1 foot long.
There are usually both male and female flowers on the same stem, but sometimes
a stem has a single gender. Both genders are about 1 inch across with 3 broad
white petals and 3 small pale green sepals behind the flower.
Female flowers have a bulbous green center, covered in tiny carpels.
https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/flower/broad-leaf-arrowhead
Male flowers have a group of golden yellow stamens in the center.

 

So why this dichotomy in gender between the 2 sides of the road and the 2 ditches?

 Female flowers on the West side and male flowers on the East.

 On Monday March 31 I visited the 2 ditches and was amazed to see obvious differences:

 The East side ditch - photo directly above - had open water while the West side had snow at least 10cm higher than the road surface.

So Vicki and I have done water monitoring of McGee Creek some years ago and turned to the staff of Couchiching Conservancy, Grants Woods, for help. Were there differences in the 2 bodies of water?

 The following is what actually happened, not necessarily the best scientific method since the data were not acquired simultaneously.

 

I drew 2 samples of water on April 30 at 4PM  - 1L from the West ditch in  a blue "Nalgene" bottle, and 1L from the East ditch in an orange "Nalgene" bottle. The following photos were taken later in a reenactment.

 The team at Grants Woods:

 

 VS, JT, and AA with 2 water testing kits.

 

Some  action shots?

 

The measurements on May 1 around 11AM:

                East    West sides of Forest Ave.
Cl-free     0        0
Cl-total     0        0

Alkalinity
                180    180

pH            8    8

Total Hardness
                450    450

2 different methods of testing delivered similar results:
Nitrates

                 0     0
pH            8    8 - basic alkaline

Phosphate
                0.2    0.0  - I personally could not see any difference between these cards, let alone the test sample.

Alkalinity
               282    284

Lake Couchiching water temperature on April 30, 2025
was 5.9°C as given on the web site:
https://seatemperature.info/lake-couchiching-water-temperature.html

Air temperature on Forest Ave was 12°C

Water taken from the East side was clear, colourless, odourless
while
water taken from the West side was yellowish, with a faint fragrence
of "damp forest floor" - not very scientific but like a walk in the woods
after a rain.

WOB
 

So it is rather late but I actually went to Forest Rd the evening before the flower discovery to see if I could see a moose.  This is what I saw in the twilight: (Mon Sept 2 2024)

 

 

 So maybe evidence for the effects of street lighting? Need to carry out all observations in a co-ordinated way.

 

wobbily