Binger Woods
Acquired:  1999
Acreage:  30.0
Uses:  hiking trails

Cross Highway Entrance

Conservation Commission

Directions:

Located on the south side of Cross Highway between Redding and Congress.

Merritt Parkway north to exit 44; turn right onto Congress Street; head past Burr Street and Hillside Road to make a left turn onto Cross Highway; park on the right side just before the bridge over Great Brook. 

Trails:
 

11/14/2005.  On a nice day, we parked just before the bridge, 50 yards south of the Merritt Parkway. We crossed Cross Highway to the south side and turned left to walk past the open space sign and to reach a trail by a chained off entrance/exit.  This is an oak/beech forest.  The area is hilly and on this day it was raining leaves.  Soon it is going to be very hard to identify the trees.  We notice there are not many bushes in the understory.  We walked south on the main trail passing a picnic table.  There is a path on the left that we pass as we head through a stone wall; passed through a second stone wall; now find ourselves in a little valley.  Soon the trail peters out so we turn around to retrace our steps back to that side path that we had seen earlier.  This trail heads over to an intersection with another north south trail.  We could have kept going to explore more of the trails, but what's the sense since there is not that much vegetation showing.  So we turned left to head down to another chained off entrance/exit by Cross Highway. 

We come out east of where we parked, about 150 yards away from the car; turned left and walked back to the car.  Dr. Patrick L. Cooney.

PLANT LIST:
Dr. Patrick L. Cooney, 11/14/2005

Trees:
Acer platanoides (Norway maple)
Acer saccharum ( sugar maple)
Betula lenta (black birch)
Carpinus caroliniana (musclewood)
Fagus grandifolia (American beech)
Liriodendron tulipifera (tulip tree)
Prunus serotina (black cherry)
Quercus alba (white oak)
Quercus rubra (red oak)
Quercus velutina (black oak)

Shrubs:
Berberis thunbergii (Japanese barberry)
Chimaphila maculata (striped wintergreen)
Euonymus alatus (winged euonymus)
Ilex verticillata (winterberry)
Lindera benzoin (spicebush)
Rubus hispidus (swamp dewberry)
Vaccinium sp. (a low bush blueberry)
Viburnum acerifolium (maple-leaf viburnum)

Vines:
Celastrus orbiculatus (Asiatic bittersweet)
Smilax glauca (sawbrier)
Smilax rotundifolia (round-leaved greenbrier)
Toxicodendron radicans (poison ivy)

Herbs:
Alliaria petiolata (garlic mustard)
Polygonum cespitosum (cespitose smartweed)

Sedges:
Carex laxiflora type (loose-flowered type sedge)

Ferns:
Polystichum acrostichoides (Christmas fern)

Mystery shrub:
Alternate three very lobed and toothed shrub with arching branches; 2 deep sinuses and the middle part of the leaf is the largest. Like a trident?