A Compendium of Wetland Terms
(with a little help from my dictionary)
  • bog - wet spongy ground; especially : a poorly drained usually acid area rich in accumulated plant material, frequentlysurrounding a body of open water, and having a characteristic flora (as of sedges, heaths, and sphagnum (and carnivorous plants!))
  • swamp - a wetland often partially or intermittently covered with water; especially : one dominated by woody vegetation (like cypress trees and stuff.)
  • marsh - a tract of soft wet land usually characterized by monocotyledons (as grasses or cattails)
  • slough - a place of deep mud or mire, a creek in a marsh or tide flat
  • glade - an open space surrounded by woods.  Not really a wetland, but might surround a fen or bog.
  • fen - low land covered wholly or partly with water unless artificially drained.  Kind of like a bog, but with higher nutrient levels.  Maybe a bog wannabe?
  • savannah - a treeless plain especially in Florida, usually seasonally flooded.
  • moor - a boggy area; especially : one that is peaty and dominated by grasses and sedges
  • muskeg - a sphagnum bog of northern No. America often with tussocks
  • pocosin - an upland swamp of the coastal plain of the southeastern U.S.
  • carr - a chiefly British fen.
  • vernal pool - a pool of water forming in the spring, usually dry part of the year
  • pond - an open body of water smaller than a lake
  • lake - an open body of water larger than a pond
  • reservoir - an artificial body where water is collected and kept in quantity for use
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