Urban Restoration and its Challenges:  Bow-in-the-Clouds

Nate Fuller Saturday September 7 2013

Our field trip to Bow-in-the-Clouds will feature an exploration into an urban treasure of rich wetlands.  We’ll follow the boardwalks into the wetlands to experience the sometimes subtle but always significant differences between several wetland types: southern wet meadow, prairie fen, southern shrub carr, and southern hardwood swamp.  We will also venture off trail a bit to take a peek into a large spring/seep that features floating mats of interesting plants interspersed with sedge hummocks.

Nate will be highlighting the effects of habitat restoration efforts that have been going on for the last few years in the wetlands and adjoining upland oak savanna remnant.  Native plants have bounced back after the removal of glossy buckthorn, hybrid cattails, and other invasive species.  Visitors can expect to see some scattered showing of lovely flowers like blue lobelia, shrubby cinquefoil and turtlehead as well as wide expanses of joe-pye weed and swamp aster.

We’ll meet behind the Nazareth College complex at 10:00 a.m.  You enter from Gull Road and go north past the Transformation Center to use the parking lot west of the main building.