Indian Mound Reserve

Virginia Bluebells

Today I went to Indian Mound Reserve in Cedarville. My friend said to me maybe I will find snow trillium here. I did not know about this park. It is a Greene County Park, not State, and not nature preserve. But it is very interesting.

There are two old mound areas in the park, and that is why it has the name "Indian Mound". I saw the largest mound, Williamson Mound. It is more than 2000 years old and 30 feet tall with steep sides. From the top it is not very interesting view because there are many trees, but I think people who use this long time ago they cut close trees and can see very far. There is one more area with mounds in this park, but I did not see it now, maybe another day.

 On the trail close to Williamson Mound I found many Harbinger-of-Spring (Erigenia bulbosa)  Hairy Bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta) in the cut grass. One flower had a beetle!

 

Most interesting area of the park for me is the gorge on Massie Creek. It is very wide, not similar narrow gorge in Clifton on Little Miami River. Wildflowers here are similar to Clifton Gorge, but less. The trails are also more difficult than Clifton Gorge. One part, there is this really high overhang, very amazing. I said "wow!" when I saw it. There are several small waterfalls, and one 18 foot high waterfall, Cedar Cliff Falls. I think some people think this waterfall is natural, but it is not. Cedar Cliff Falls was made for Harbison Mill but it is only ruins now. The Falls are still very nice.

I saw some wildflowers, Hepatica, Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum), Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica), Wild Stonecrop (Sedum ternatum), and I think Early Meadow Rue (Thalictrum dioicum), most not yet ready for blooming. I also found some little Maidenhair Spleenwort (Asplenium trichomanes) on rocks, and Walking Fern (Asplenium rhizophyllum) and liverworts (Conocephalum?). I did not see any snow trillium. I think they are all finished. Maybe they bloomed really early this year. We had some rain in February, I remember from first time I went to Clifton Gorge this year. Maybe they were there and I missed them.

Wild Stonecrop

Maidenhair Spleenwort

Early Meadow Rue?

Or, maybe there are no more snow trillium in Massie Creek Gorge. I feel a little bit sad about Indian Mound Reserve, because it is a beautiful place but it has a lot of problems. There is a lot of honeysuckle and garlic mustard in the park and trash in the creek. And there is a lot of trail erosion because people walk anywhere. Many rocks I see moss and plants rubbed away. I think if Greene County is not more careful with Massie Creek Gorge they will lose all their beautiful spring wildflowers from shoes and honeysuckle. I tried to find if they have volunteer days for removing invasive plants, but I do not see that. I will help if I can.  It is a really beautiful area and you should go sometime. Honeysuckle and garlic mustard are only really bad problem on edge areas, and maybe it only seem me in early spring trails are not very good because there is nothing green not yet. I will make a new blog about spring wildflowers here, it is really really amazing area. I think I only miss snow trilliums. They are small and difficult.