Midlands Field Trip to Lynch’s Woods

It could have been a couple of degrees cooler on Sunday, May 26, but otherwise it was a perfect day for an afternoon of botanizing in Lynch’s Woods Park, about two miles east of downtown Newberry. The park is a wonderfully diverse forest tract owned and maintained by Newberry County. Professor Charles Horn of Newberry College led a group of 18 of us on a slow, two-hour trek through the property, stopping every minute or two to point out floral highlights and answering dozens of times, “What is this plant?” A highlight was seeing the May white azalea, Rhododendron eastmanii, endemic to our state and a research focus of Dr. Horn’s. (Watch his presentation on SC azaleas here.)

Most of the 276-acre park is shaded by a dense canopy of hardwoods, though there are several old loblolly pines, an indication that the site was more open—either by human activity or by fire—in decades past. The roads that traverse the sight create open and edge habitats, and there is a creek meandering through the property that has created some relief and a diversity of moisture conditions. Altogether, this variety of conditions allows many different species to be seen in a small area.

There are several miles of trails, including a 4.9 mile segment of the Palmetto Trail. Maps are available online. Some of the trails are mountain bike and horse friendly (we saw three horses, but no bikes). Mosquitoes weren’t completely absent, but not prevalent enough to warrant repellent. Most of our hike was in the shade, but the parts along the gravel road made me glad I’d brought a hat. Lynch’s Woods is about 45 minutes from downtown Columbia and worth the trip.

–D. McInnes