Yesterday Ruta and I headed to one of the corridor sites on a tip from LaRae. LaRae is employed by the park system in their land management department. She is a wonderful amateur botanist and is always on the lookout for rare plants.
This site - an old farm field - is scheduled to be mowed and seeded. That is her pink tape she uses to mark suspected rare plants.
We were able to confirm and document Bayberry (above), Twisted Yellow-eyed Grass, Great Lakes Goldenrod, and two species of Pinweed - all endangered in the state.
The dense blazing star were blooming all over the north end of the field, where most of the rare plants were located.
She can now direct the crews to avoid mowing and seeding this area.
I continue to be amazed at what comes up when these old farm fields are abandoned.
You probably already posted the explanation . . but I missed it . . what are the corridors? Are they all farmland that went up for sale and the park system purchased them? Were they donated?
ReplyDeleteWhat a treasure.
The corridor sites are properties that the park system has and is purchasing to provide natural corridors for plants and animals between the large preserves of Oak Openings, the Nature Conservancy's Kitty Todd Preserve and Secor Metropark. Most of the sites were previously farm lands. These sites were mostly (all?) purchase with monies from park system tax levies passed over the years, specifically for this purpose.
ReplyDeleteIt really does show vision and foresight. I'll bet I could find a metroparks website that lists the acreage that's been added in the last decade.
ReplyDelete