For my spot, I chose somewhere in the Centennial Woods Natural Area. I tried to pick somewhere a little further into the woods that I hadn’t been to before that felt a little less urban, and I found a cool spot up on a sort of ridge. Unfortunately you can still hear the highway, but that’s just sort of the reality of natural areas in a city. To get there, you follow the trail from the main entrance down until you get to the bridges over the creek. Keep walking past the creek, and when you get the the bottom of the hill, turn right and walk up to the top of the hill. There’s a trail that snakes along a little ridge, and when it forks take the fork to the left, toward a dead tree sort of in the middle of the trail. When the trail forks again, take a right and stop before you start going down the hill. Ta-da! You’re there! Exciting, isn’t it? Part of why I chose this place is because it feels both open and closed in at the same time. The trees are pretty tall and spread out, but are mature enough to have mostly closed the canopy, which kept out the rain today and made the light a lovely green-yellow color. The overstory is a mix of black cherry and some type of maple. I am not 100% sure what kind of maple, because the bark was really smooth and grey which I didn’t recognize, I’ll figure it out next time I go.The understory is a few very small maple trees and a lot of ferns blanketing the forest floor. Theres also a ton of trees and large branches that have fallen and are decomposing, which could potentially make for some cool mushrooms and/or some little tree sprouts at some point. There is a trail that runs through the spot down the edge of the ridge it sits on into what I think is either a dry or seasonal stream bed, I’ll have to report back on this later in the year after I do some exploring of the woods as a whole. I’m excited to spend some time here through the semester and to see how it changes with the seasons.
Centennial Woods Phenology Spot 2021-2022
Naomi Prahl