Here are pictures of the Southwest Garden Group when they went on a tour of old-growth forest land between East River Rd., Murlin Drive and the Lehigh Valley Trail.  The land is owned by the U of R and we were guided by Tara and Justin Ramsey who teach at the U of R.  We started the walk in the southern end of the the U of R parking lot for the Alumni and Advancement Center at 300 East River Road.

Mark had handout for everyone and got the group organized.  Our guides Tara and Justin Ramsey then joined us.  Click on the pictures to see them full size.

We walked through old-growth forest between the parking lot and Murlin drive for the first part of the tour.
This grove of old-growth forest which we first walked through is in greatest danger of being developed because it is relatively dry land.  The old-growth land southwest of here is wetter and less attractive for construction.

Tara Ramsey fills us in on some background before we start into the woods. Justin Ramsey points out some of the small flowers coming up.Little May-apple parasols were everywhere this week, but none in bloom yet.

Other flowers were in bloom.

We saw a few lilies in bloom and some red trillium.

We got to see quite a variety of trees on our walk.

Jane Milliman stops to photograph a shagbark hickory .

Near the swamp, at the base of an overturned tree, fiddle head ferns are coming up.

We passed a low hanging Hawthorn branch which I photographed with care.

When we made it back to the marsh pond Jane Milliman took some pictures of the birds flying about.   It was 7:00pm at this point and the group headed back to the parking-lot by way of the Lehigh Valley Trail.

Before leaving the old-growth forest I snap one last picture of a white trillium.

This is a tour you could do every two or three weeks and see something different each time.