Map

Location

Parking

Acreage

Description

Approximately 1 to 2 acres of this land is forest, with the remainder being a mature wooded swamp. A small narrow inaccessible pond (about 1 acre) occurs along the western edge of the property. The forested acreage consists of a 500 feet long peninsula perpendicular to Nashoba Road. The land surface of the peninsula rises as high as 7 to 8 feet above the surrounding swamp. Vegetation species observed in 1998 include:

• Wooded Swamp: Oaks, red maple, sweet pepperbush, ferns, high bush blueberry, mosses, and button bush.
• Forested Peninsula: Beech, oak, red maple, black birch, witch hazel, and tea berry.

Trails

A center trail was cut in 1998 for the entire length of this peninsula, starting at Nashoba Road by the left side of the sign marked "Nashoba Wetlands".

Features

Look for the following features of interest:

• A mature American Beech tree forest in the northern two-thirds of the peninsula. About 50 beech trees occur in that location, up to 20 inches in diameter.
• Massive amounts of the shrub, Sweet Pepperbush, blossoms in late July and early August and have highly aromatic white flowers. You can detect the aroma just by driving down the road.
• The forested peninsula provides an excellent opportunity to penetrate deep into the center of an extensive mature wooded swamp without struggling through muck, water and hummocks. The swamp contains large Maple, and Oak trees with an understory of Sweet Pepperbush, blueberry, mosses and ferns. The trail provides good opportunities to observe swamp wildlife and vegetation species.
• Bedrock outcrops of granite pegmatite reveal large zones of white quartzite and white plagioclase feldspar.

History

This land was donated to the Trust by Mr. and Mrs. John A. Kimball and Josephine R. Whitcomb in 1964 and 1965.

Soft muck in swamp.

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