Dan Whitten will lead a small group of us through Stevens Creek Heritage Preserve, a place Patrick McMillan has called, “beyond a doubt the premier site to visit and photograph spring ephemerals in the Midstate. The preserve has a combination of extraordinary color and rare species which can be seen nowhere else in the state.”
Photo by Dan Whitten
Note that this is not the Rocky Shoals Spider Lily preserve at Parks Mill. That’s upstream. Are you getting a sense this is a special area?
The soil at Stevens Creek Heritage Preserve provides for rare relict species that have likely grown here since the last ice age. Among them are several Trillium species, False Rue Anemone, Shooting Star, Dutchhman’s Breeches (maybe the only place in South Carolina to see it wild), and the federally threatened Lake Miccosukee Gooseberry, South Carolina’s only native Gooseberry. It is known from just two areas worldwide, in this preserve and by Lake Miccosukee in Florida.
Space is limited to 15! Sign up at the form here.
You’ll receive a followup email with info on carpooling and more.
Questions? Email midlandsfieldtrips@scnps.org
Read more about the preserve at Name That Plant, the official SCDNR page, and photos collected on iNaturalist.