Cherry Hill Road Trails (Hillaire Tract)
Cherry Hill Road, Montgomery Township, Somerset County, NJ
36 acres

Directions:

Heading south on Route 206 turn right onto Route 518 (the Georgetown-Franklin Turnpike); turn left onto Cherry Hill Road; the parking area is on the left between Coppervail Court and the next street, Cherry Brook Drive. Is is 1.1 miles north of the south end of Cherry Valley Road. (When we were there we had to take the routed detour to the trails as the Cherry Hill Bridge was out of service.)

Geology:

Cherry Brook and a Tributary of Cherry Brook flow through the area.

Trails:

November 1, 2003. The trail (part of the Montgomery Pathways) is on both sides of the road; on the east it follows the Tributary of Cherry Brook to a pond; on the west side it follows the Tributary of Cherry Brook through the Walnut Grove and then heads north on Cherry Brook itself. We walked the east side of the trail to the pond and back. (At the fork in the trail take the right branch -- the left one shortly dead ends.) There is a short boardwalk over a wet area. The one time farm fields are now massively covered by red cedar.

http://twp.montgomery.nj.us/cher.pdf

PLANT LIST:
Drs. Patrick and Rosemary Cooney
* = blooming 11/01/03

Trees:
Acer rubrum (red maple)
Carya spp. (hickory)
Cornus florida (flowering dogwood)
Juniperus virginiana (red cedar)
Prunus serotina (black cherry)
Pseudotsuga menziesii (Douglas fir)
Pyrus sp. (crab apple)
Quercus bicolor (swamp white oak)
Quercus palustris (pin oak)

Shrubs:
Cornus amomum (swamp dogwood)
Elaeagnus umbellata (autumn olive)
Ligustrum sp. (privet)
Lonicera morrowii (Morrow's honeysuckle)
Rosa sp. (big rose hips)
Rosa multiflora (multiflora rose)
Rubus occidentalis (black raspberry)
Rubus phoenicolasius (wineberry)
Rubus sp. (blackberry)
Viburnum prunifolium (blackhaw viburnum)

Vines:
Lonicera japonica (Japanese honeysuckle)
Polygonum scandens (climbing false buckwheat)

Herbs:
Achillea millefolium (common yarrow)
Alliaria petiolata (garlic mustard)
Arctium sp. (burdock)
Aster novae-angliae (New England aster) *
Aster spp. (asters) *
Barbarea vulgaris (common wintercress)
Bidens aristosa (tickseed sunflower)
Cirsium discolor (field thistle)
Daucus carota (Queen Anne's lace)
Euthamia graminifolia (grass-leaved goldenrod)
Geum canadense (white avens)
Gnaphalium obtusifolium (sweet everlasting)
Leonurus cardiaca (motherwort)
Lepidium virginicum (poor man's pepper)
Linaria vulgaris (butter and eggs)
Phytolacca americana (pokeweed)
Plantago lanceolata (English plantain)
Potentilla sp. (cinquefoil)
Prunella vulgaris (self-heal)
Rumex crispus (curled dock)
Rumex acetosella (sheep sorrel)
Solidago spp. (goldenrod)
Trifolium pratense (red clover)
Verbascum blattaria (moth mullein)
Verbascum thapsus (common mullein)

Rushes:
Juncus effusus (soft rush)
Juncus tenuis (path rush)

Sedges:
Cyperus sp. (nut or umbrella sedge)
Scirpus cyperinus (woolly grass bulrush)

Grasses:
Echinochloa sp. (barnyard grass)
Microstegium vimineum (Japanese stilt grass)
Panicum clandestinum (deer-tongue grass)
Schizachyrium (little blue stem grass)
Tridens flavus (purple top grass)
yellow foxtail grass)