Tunix Hill Park
Melville Avenue, Fairfield, Fairfield County, Connecticut

Directions:

Merritt Parkway north to exit 44; turn left and at the light turn right onto Black Rock Turnpike; pass by Fairfield Woods Road and Stillson Road to make a left turn onto Tunix Hill Road cut-off; turn left onto Villa Avenue; turn left onto Mellville Avenue; turn left into the parking area just north of Third Street. 

Facilities:

2 baseball fields, soccer field, playground, tennis courts. large lawn area

Facilities:

12/01/2005.  This is primarily a recreational park.  But there is a small woods area along the flood plain of a small stream.  I walked to the north end of the park, turned left and followed the ridge above the small stream in a small valley area.  Walking along the ridge, I was soon squeezed between the baseball diamond fence and the edge of the valley.  It was a little trick and I would not recommend it.  Getting past the area of the fence, I then had to bushwhack the rest of the way downhill to the lawn at the west end of the baseball field.  An informal path continues to follow the stream for a short ways until it heads into a culvert and disappears.  The path loops around back to the green lawn area.  

I looped around the stream path and then took a path that heads north over the stream to the other side of the floodplain.  The trail started to loop around a hill, but when it reached the nearby houses, it just stopped.  So I turned around and then took a left turn to climb the hill to the top of the ridge overlooking the stream below.  I wanted to walk all the way back to Melville Avenue, but private property intervened.  So I walked down off the ridge to the floodplain. I crossed over   the stream and climbed up the other side of the valley wall back to the green lawn of the park near the front of the baseball diamond.  Walked back to the car.  Dr. Patrick L. Cooney.     

PLANT LIST:
Dr. Patrick L. Cooney, 12/01/2005

Trees:
Acer platanoides (Norway maple)
Acer rubrum (red maple)
Fagus grandifolia (American beech)
Fraxinus americana (white ash)
Liriodendron tulipifera (tulip tree)
Pinus strobus (white pine)
Platanus occidentalis (American sycamore)
Prunus serotina (black cherry)
Quercus alba (white oak)
Quercus palustris (pin oak)
Quercus rubra (red oak)
Quercus velutina (black oak)
Robinia pseudoacacia (black locust)
Sassafras albidum (sassafras)

Shrubs:
Berberis thunbergii (Japanese barberry)
Cornus amomum (swamp dogwood)
Euonymus alatus (winged euonymus)
Ligustrum sp. (privet)
Lindera benzoin (spice bush)
Lonicera morrowii (Morrow's honeysuckle)
Rhododendron maximum (rosebay rhododendron)
Rosa multiflora (multiflora rose)
Rubus sp. (blackberry)
Vaccinium sp. (a low bush blueberry)
Viburnum acerifolium (maple-leaf viburnum)

Vines:
Celastrus orbiculatus (Asiatic bittersweet)
Lonicera japonica (Japanese honeysuckle)
Smilax rotundifolia (round-leaved greenbrier)
Toxicodendron radicans (poison ivy)
Vitis sp. (grape)

Herbs:
Allium vineale (field garlic)
Aster spp. (aster)
Chelidonium majus (celandine)
Geum canadense (white avens)
Phytolacca americana (pokeweed)
Polygonum cuspidatum (Japanese knotweed)
Taraxacum officinale (common dandelion)
Verbascum thapsus (common mullein)

Rushes:
Juncus tenuis (path rush)

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

Grasses:
Setaria faberi (nodding foxtail grass)

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