MNPS Field Trip: Greenbelt Forest Preserve

Sponsoring Organizations: Maryland Native Plant Society

MNPS Field Trip: Greenbelt Forest Preserve

The Greenbelt Forest Preserve is a 225 acre parcel of the original forest that once surrounded the City of Greenbelt.  Some of this woodland adjoins the extensive pine barrens communities that extend eastward across the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center lands in northern Prince George’s County through northern Anne Arundel County to the headwaters of the Magothy River.  These globally-rare communities of Maryland’s Western Shore are considered ancient outliers of New Jersey Pine Barrens, occurring at the southernmost extent of their range. 

Oak-Heath-Pine Forest is the dominant vegetation of these northern coastal plain pineland communities.  In further celebrating MNPS’s “2013 Year of the Heath”, we’ll look for and particularly focus on the many species of ericads (plants of the Heath Family) that grow in the preserve, as well as associated plants like Chinquapin (Castanea pumila), Dwarf Chinquapin Oak (Quercus prinoides), Pitch Pine (Pinus rigida), and many more.  We’ll also look for rare acidic seepage communities.