Taylor Woods/Thorpe Preserve  
Weston, Fairfield County, Connecticut
22 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; drive 2.4 miles and turn right onto Fanton Hill Road; drive 0.6 of a mile and turn left onto Thorp Drive; drive 0.3 of a mile and turn right onto Hunt Lane.   Go to the end of Hunt Lane and park in the circle by house #20.

Trails:

9/21/2005.  On a beautiful day, Ceferino Santana, dog Sonar and I  made just a very brief stop.  I just wanted to see in general where the trail was going.  We parked by house #20 and walked across just a small piece of the driveway entrance to head uphill to the Preserve sign.  We soon found ourselves walking along a power cut for electrical wires.   This did not last long as we were soon ducking into the woods following following trail signs on the left.  The trail headed downhill.  This strange trail pattern was designed to get around the private houses in the area.  We got pretty close to a house on the left.  Then we saw that the trail made a big dip.  I decided to stop at this point because if I went downhill, I knew I would have to work hard coming back up.  Dr. Patrick L. Cooney.

PLANT LIST:
Dr. Patrick L. Cooney

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

Trees:
Acer saccharum (sugar maple)
Betula lenta (black birch)
Carpinus caroliniana (musclewood)
Carya ovata (shagbark hickory)
Carya tomentosa (mockernut hickory)
Cornus florida (flowering dogwood)
Fagus grandifolia (American beech)
Juniperus virginiana (red cedar)
Liriodendron tulipifera (tulip tree)
Pinus strobus (white pine)
Prunus serotina (black cherry)
Quercus alba (white oak)
Quercus rubra (red oak)
Sassafras albidum (sassafras)

Shrubs:
Berberis thunbergii (Japanese barberry)
Chimaphila maculata (striped wintergreen)
Corylus sp. (hazel)
Euonymus alatus (winged euonymus)
Lindera benzoin (spicebush)
Mitchella repens (partridgeberry)
Rubus alleghaniensis (common  blackberry)
Rubus flagellaris (northern dewberry)
Rubus sp. (blackberry)
Vaccinium pallidum (hillside blueberry)
Viburnum acerifolium (maple-leaf viburnum)

Vines:
Celastrus orbiculatus (Asiatic bittersweet)
Parthenocissus quinquefolia (Virginia creeper)
Polygonum scandens (climbing false bindweed)
Smilax rotundifolia (round-leaved greenbrier)
Toxicodendron radicans (poison ivy)
Vitis aestivalis (summer grape)

Herbs:
Alliaria petiolata (garlic mustard)
Aralia nudicaulis (wild sarsaparilla)    
Amphicarpaea bracteata (hog peanut)
Aster patens (clasping aster)     *
Aster spp. (small white aster)     *
Desmodium sp. (tick trefoil)
Epifagus virginiana (beech drops)
Euthamia graminifolia (grass-leaved goldenrod)     *
Gnaphalium obtusifolium (sweet everlasting)     *
Hieracium sp. (hawkweed)
Lysimachia quadrifolia (whorled loosestrife)
Phytolacca americana (pokeweed)
Solidago bicolor (silverrod)    *
Solidago spp. (goldenrod)     *
Trifolium pratense (red clover)
Verbascum thapsus (common mullein)
Veronica officinalis (common speedwell)

Rushes:
Juncus tenuis (path rush)

Sedges:
Carex vulpinoidea (fox sedge) 

Grasses:
Panicum clandestinum (deer-tongue grass)
Schizachyrium scoparium (little blue stem grass)

Ferns:
Athyrium filix-femina (lady fern)
Dennstaedtia punctilobula (hay-scented fern)
Polystichum acrostichoides (Christmas fern)

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