Silvermine Marsh
Old Easton Turnpike, Weston, Fairfield County, Connecticut
9 acres

Directions:

Merritt Parkway east to exit 42;  right turn onto Route 57 (Weston Road); go under Weston Road; turn right onto Lyons Plains Road; turn right onto Fanton Hill Road; turn left onto Old Easton Turnpike; the area is located on the north side of Old Easton Turnpike between Silver Ridge Common and Pilgrim Lane.   The sign for the marsh is across from house #27. 

Trails:

9/21/2005.  On a nice day, Ceferino Santana, dog Sonar and I parked at a small pull-off by the Aspetuck Land Trust sign.  This is a short trail.  There is a sign saying that a Boy Scout Troop did a major trail maintenance in 1991, almost 15 years ago.  The trail is in need of some major trail maintenance.  I did a little trail maintenance as we walked along the trail.  The majority of the land appears to be swamp/marsh with lots of tussock sedge and red maples.  The trail heads in a semi-circle around part of the swamp.  It does a short loop trail near the end of the short trail to send the hiker back to the marsh entrance. 

As usual with a trail that is not maintained and is too near the back yard of houses, lots of vegetation gets thrown onto the trail.  We cleared some of the worst of it off the trail.  As we were heading back to the car, we heard a voice say: "Drop that stuff in your hands and get out of here!"  We looked back to the landscaping waste we cleared, but did not see anyone, so we just continued on.  I wondered if someone had called the cops on us again.  Really, it would be nice if more people would use the trails so that the home owners in the area wouldn't think the small preserves were deserted enough to justify throwing landscaping materials onto the trails.  The trails are so little used that the home owners think the rare walker is someone "casing" their homes or up to something nefarious.  It would be funny, if it also wasn't irritating to be accosted for simply walking a trail.    Dr. Patrick L. Cooney.

PLANT LIST:
Dr. Patrick L. Cooney

*  =  plants blooming on field trip, 9/21/2005

Trees:
Acer rubrum (red maple)
Betula alleghaniensis (yellow birch)
Carpinus caroliniana (musclewood)
Fagus grandifolia (American beech)
Nyssa sylvatica (tupelo)
Quercus alba (white oak)
Quercus rubra (red oak)
Quercus velutina (black oak)
Ulmus americana (American elm)

Shrubs:
Berberis thunbergii (Japanese barberry)
Clethra alnifolia (sweet pepperbush)
Euonymus alatus (winged euonymus)
Gaylussacia baccata (black huckleberry)
Hamamelis virginiana (witch hazel)
Lindera benzoin (spicebush)
Mitchella repens (partridgeberry)
Rubus phoenicolasius (wineberry)
Vaccinium corymbosum (highbush blueberry)
some type of very tall Hydrangea bush? with large flower inflorescence that have big sterile flowers and smaller fertile ones; Hydrangea paniculata grandiflora (Pegee Hydrangea) a possibility because of the pyramidal flower clusters

Vines:
Celastrus orbiculatus (Asiatic bittersweet)
Parthenocissus quinquefolia (Virginia creeper)
Smilax rotundifolia (round-leaved greenbrier)
 Toxicodendron radicans (poison ivy)
Vitis sp. (grape)

Herbs:
Alliaria petiolata (garlic mustard)
Arisaema triphyllum (Jack in the pulpit)
Aster divaricatus (white wood aster)     *
Boehmeria cylindrica (false nettle)
Galium sp. (bedstraw)
Maianthemum canadense (Canada mayflower))
Prunella vulgaris (self-heal)
Symplocarpus foetidus (skunk cabbage)

Sedges:
Carex intumescens (bladder sedge)
Carex laxiflora type (loose-flowered type sedge)
Carex stricta (tussock sedge)

Grasses:
Glyceria sp. (mannagrass)
Leersia virginica (white grass)
Microstegium vimineum (Japanese stilt grass)

Ferns:
Lycopodium obscurum (ground pine)
Osmunda cinnamomea (cinnamon fern)
Polystichum acrostichoides (Christmas fern)
Thelypteris noveboracensis (New York fern)

Others:
Sphagnum sp. (sphagnum moss)

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