Walk

Meet at 9:00 a.m. at Cornell Cooperative Extension (615 Willow Ave Ithaca) to carpool, or at the Preserve’s new North parking lot on Irish Settlement Road at 9:30 a.m. (there are signs on the roadside). This diverse, scenic, and inviting 217-acre preserve is a short drive from Ithaca (near Dryden), and features the rugged headwaters of Six-Mile Creek, rolling meadows, open wetlands, mixed hardwood forest, wet hemlock woods with sphagnum moss and liverworts, numerous vernal pools, a large beaver pond fringed with cattails, and a Great Blue Heron rookery.

See Dryopteris, Dennstaedtia, Cystopteris and many more at the height of the season at this fern-rich site. The walk will be of moderate difficulty, on a well-maintained trail and will require climbing a long staircase, but we will move at a botanizing pace. Meet at CCE at 1 pm to carpool, or meet at the site (parking lot by the old mill inside the Upper entrance). A parking fee will be required at the park.

The focus of this walk will be scenery, including waterfalls and a boardwalk through a bog (maybe native azaleas will be in bloom), bryophytes, bog life. Meet at the CCE (615 Willow Ave, Ithaca) at 1pm to carpool. Pack hand lens and binoculars, if you got 'em, and food; we may get back late.

There could be no better time than Mother’s Day to appreciate the genus Viola. During this outing we will focus on identification of the rich violet diversity that occurs where we live. We will travel to various sites to see as much of this diversity as possible. Expect to focus your attention on these showy but small plants. Led by David Werier.
Meet at CCE at 1 pm.

David Werier and Natalie Cleavitt team up for the ever-popular winter lichen walk. Dress warmly (we may be moving slowly) and bring a 10x hand lens if you have one. Meet at CCE at 1PM to carpool.

Learn the tricks of identifying trees in the winter, and poke around in the snow to uncover some evergreens. Dress warmly! Meet at CCE at 1PM to carpool.

Meet at CCE (615 Willow Ave, Ithaca) at 1:00 to car pool. Though the main trail will probably be closed this early in the season, we will drive to the upper end of the rim trail on a park road for a short, easy walk in a locality rich in wildflowers. (A parking fee may be required at the park.) Contact info@flnps.org for more information.

Meet at CCE (615 Willow Ave, Ithaca) at 1:00 to car pool. (A parking fee may be required at the park). Moderate difficulty. Contact info@flnps.org for more information.

THIS WALK IS NOW FULL. PLEASE CONTACT DAVID (Nakita[at]lightlink.com) TO GET ON A WAITING LIST. A joint field trip of the New York Flora Association and the Finger Lakes Native Plant Society. We will spend the day exploring Michigan Hollow Swamp, a large forested, headwater peatland in south-central New York. Some of our time will be in upland forests and the remainder in the marshes and swamps of the hollow. The area is rich botanically and will afford us the opportunity to see a large diversity of plants.