Enjoying the Path – Kleinstuck Preserve in Kalamazoo, Michigan

My dentist’s office sits on a ridge above a deep wooded ravine.  There is a trail at road end just before we park that I’ve wanted to walk but somehow something always got in the way – work, snow, rain, obligations – until today.

The path leads to the Kleinstuck Preserve, a 50 acre woods with a small marshy lake in the middle of Kalamazoo/Portage Michigan.

Maple, oak, hickory abound.  The trees leave enough room for plenty of low shrubs.

Mrs. Caroline Kleinstuck donated the property in memory of her husband, Mr. Carl Kleinstuck.  The land was barren in the oldest photographs.

Kleinstruck Preserve Facing Northwest Around 1900 from WMU Website

Students at Western State Normal School (now Western Michigan University) planted over 10,000 trees in 1927 and the college began managing the property.

Western Normal Students Planting Trees Arbor Day 1927 from WMU Kleinrock Website

Today it is full of trees.

 

There weren’t many flowers along the main pathway.  I couldn’t stop long to take pictures because the mosquitoes whined around my head as soon as I stood still.  Here are brown eyed Susans , native sunflowers and a white flower I don’t recognize.  I don’t know which of the dozens of varieties these are, only that they are pretty and I was glad to see familiar beautiful flowers.

 

My new wildflower book has 94 pages, about 7 plants per page, just of white flowers, a little overwhelming.  I think this may be white snakeroot based on the leaves.

 

One of the side paths goes to this odd patio paved with slabs of stone and a wooden arch and a pump is down the hill.

The lake today was water and marsh.

With bugs finding me tasty I didn’t walk to the edge to rest in this well-placed bench.

The preserve has signs about invasive species, particularly noting garlic mustard which is rampant around here, and I saw a lot of purple loosestrife which has big pretty flower spikes but unfortunately native wildlife don’t eat the seeds.  There are small fields of pokeweed along the northern path too, that is nasty stuff that spreads through its gazillion berries and is toxic to mammals.

It was a beautiful morning, misty and sunny together.

What a beautiful morning!