Spring Highlights

• Blooming wildflowers: Virginia bluebells, Dutchman’s breeches, squirrel-corn, Virginia springbeauty, Canada waterleaf
• Elongated flower clusters of the cottonwood tree, which look like long caterpillars
• Tiny yellow blooms all along the branches of northern spicebush
• Mildly foul-smelling maroon blossoms of the pawpaw tree
• Butterflies and other pollinators visiting the wildflowers

Summer Highlights

• Ripening lime green fruit of pawpaw
• Reddish orange blooms of trumpet creeper

Autumn Highlights

• Yellow blooms of wingstem
• Ripe pawpaw fruit—yellow-green with brown spots, and mango-sized (delicious!)
• Red northern spicebush berries
• Changing leaf colors
• Large brown leaves of American sycamore on the ground like brown handkerchiefs (pleasant smell when crushed)

Winter Highlights

• Notice the structure and colors of tree trunks, like the majestic straight trunks of tuliptree; the mosaic-like pattern of American sycamore bark near the base, bone-white near the top; and the smooth, gray bark of American hornbeam that seems to be stretched tight over bulging muscles (also called ironwood or musclewood)
• Look for clues to the height of the most recent flood (although it may not have flooded in several years)
• Look for birds seeking shelter from the weather in this natural community