Category: Plants

Fens, Bogs, and Flowing Water of Malloryville Preserve of Freeville, New York

Discover Malloryville Preserve in Freeville, New York—a hidden Finger Lakes wetland of fens, bogs, and flowing water where glacial history and rare plants meet.

MichaelStephenWills5 Comments

Water defines the O.D. von Engeln Preserve at Malloryville long before we see or hear it. At first, it is only a dampness in the air, a coolness at ankle level, a dark sheen between sedge tussocks. In the space of a half-hour walk, we pass through fen, bog, marsh, and swamp, each distinct, yet bound together by the same slow, persistent flow.

Here we are traversing a swamp, our steps buoyed along on planking made from recycled plastic. The boardwalk floats visually above pools the color of tea, edged with moss and skunk cabbage. It’s easy to imagine what this crossing would have been like before the planks were laid—boots sinking, knees splashed, delicate plants crushed. The modern walkway is a quiet compromise: we may enter this saturated world without trampling it, a human gesture that matches the preserve’s ethos of protection and restraint.

The Malloryville wetlands lie in a low pocket along Fall Creek, a landscape shaped by the last ice age. As the glacier that once covered this region melted, torrents of water tunneled through the ice, depositing braided ridges of sand and gravel known as eskers. Today, more than a mile of these ancient riverbeds winds through the preserve, narrow wooded spines rising above the surrounding wetlands. From an esker crest, the pattern of water reveals itself: dark channels of open flow, pale pools rimmed with sedge, patches of sphagnum floating like cushions, and, farther off, the straight silver of Fall Creek.

But the story of Malloryville’s water begins far from these pools. Rain falls on the uplands as cool, slightly acidic water. It sinks through glacial till—a jumble left by the ice—and begins a long, blind journey underground. As it moves, the water reacts with the minerals it encounters. Where it brushes limestone or other carbonate-rich layers, it is slowly neutralized and picks up dissolved calcium and magnesium. By the time it resurfaces in low spots, it may be transformed from sour, soft rain to mineral-rich groundwater.

Those subtle chemical shifts are written onto the land. In some hollows, where water still mainly reflects its origin as rain, the environment becomes a bog—cold, acidic, nutrient-poor. Here, sphagnum moss knits a floating carpet, and only specialists such as leatherleaf and cranberries can endure. In other pockets, where groundwater welling up from below brings minerals, we find fens: lush, lime-touched wetlands offering niches for orchids, sedges, and the carnivorous pitcher plant. Marshes and swamps round out the spectrum, their standing water and wooded shade forming still more microhabitats.

In this small preserve, all these wetland types coexist side by side, threaded by water that often moves so slowly it appears not to move at all. The stillness is deceptive. A slight difference in elevation—barely the height of your boot—can determine whether water spreads and stagnates, seeps outward in a fan, or concentrates into a narrow, unseen channel. Hydrologists studying the area have shown that a water-table mound of only a few inches can redirect the underground flow and, over time, steer the evolution from open fen to peat-filled bog.

Human history here is entwined with that quiet power. The founders of the preserve, themselves from a dairy farming family, came to understand that the springs, seeps, and wetlands feeding Fall Creek were vulnerable. Gravel pits on nearby land had already bitten into the valley; another such excavation on this side would have severed the veins of water that sustain the fen and bog. Their years-long effort to protect the property culminated in a Nature Conservancy preserve whose very purpose is to safeguard water and the uncommon communities it supports.

The boardwalk under our feet is part of that story. Its recycled-plastic planks do not rot in constant dampness, and their smooth, slightly hollow sound reminds us with each step that we are guests in a place where soil never truly dries. At the edges of the walkway, tamarack and red maple lift their trunks from hummocks, their roots anchored in peat built grain by grain from centuries of water-logged plant remains. In the open patches, we can seek out pitcher plants, their flaring, water-filled leaves digesting unwary insects to make up for the nutrient-poor conditions.

Everywhere, water moves almost invisibly. It rises as a cold trickle at the base of the esker, fans through the moss as a thin sheet, and gathers again in dark, tannin-stained channels. It rarely speaks aloud; only in spring flood or after hard rain does it murmur against roots or tap lightly at the plastic planks. Yet its influence is written in every texture and color—emerald moss, rusty sedge, the silvery bark of birch leaning over a pool.

To walk in Malloryville is to learn to read this subtle handwriting. We begin by noticing the obvious: the wetness, the boardwalk, the glimpses of standing water. By the end of the walk, we are tracing gradients—how the plants shift with elevation, how the ground feels underfoot, how the air cools or warms by a degree or two. We sense the long journey of water from sky to stone to peatland to creek, and onward to Cayuga Lake and the wider world beyond.

Water, flowing quietly, almost soundlessly, with powerful effect: Malloryville Preserve, that power is persistence. It is the power to carve a valley, to build a peatland one stem at a time, to sustain rare communities of plants and animals in a modest corner of New York. To honor such water is to move carefully, speak softly, and remember that our presence, like our boardwalk, should allow the flow beneath to continue its ancient work.

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Cornell Botanic Gardens’ Monkey Run: History, Geology, and Scenic Fall Creek

A contemplative walk along Monkey Run where Fall Creek writes the valley’s history—sycamores, bridges, and Devonian stone speaking across seasons in Cornell’s living classroom.

MichaelStephenWills17 Comments

On a morning in late March, when the hills about Ithaca still hold the night’s frost in their shaded folds, I took the path called Monkey Run and went to see how Fall Creek spends its winter earnings. The air had the bright sting of thaw, a kind of vernal austerity that keeps a man honest in his steps. Along the high bank the sun spilled its coin onto the water, where it broke and flickered like a school of silver minnows. A rim of snow clung to the shale ledges, and the leaves of last year’s oaks—curled, fox-red, and faithful—whispered as if to keep the woods awake until spring fully claimed them.

Sunlit bend of Fall Creek viewed from a high bank at Monkey Run in early spring.

Monkey Run is one of the outlying parcels tended by Cornell Botanic Gardens—once called the Plantations, and now, more fittingly, named for the living charge it keeps. These gardens do not end at beds and borders; they encompass the wilder rooms of the county, more than a thousand hectares of glens, pastures, and ravines where the university’s first and oldest teacher—nature herself—still holds class. Fall Creek is one of her principal lecturers. Rising beyond the high country of Cayuga Heights and slipping under stone and snow, it shoulders its way across the campus, idles a while in Beebe Lake, and turns turbines of memory at Triphammer Falls before shouldering on toward the lake that receives nearly everything here—Cayuga—long, deep, and glacial in its thinking.

Tall white-barked sycamores leafless against a blue March sky at Monkey Run.

If you would learn a valley’s mind, walk a meander. The creek here composes with easy cursive, laying down a bar of gravel, nibbling at a bank of clay, then sweeping back to consider its work from the opposite shore. The geologist says the rock is Devonian, pages laid flat and damp with time, and the ice of ten thousand winters ago scoured them into the open. A creek is a patient mason, working without rest and never in anger. I admired these sycamores—their clean bones shining through the leafless canopy like the ribs of an old cathedral. Winter reveals their whiteness; summer grants them shade. A stand of white pines keeps a dark counsel in the background; on the muddy edge, green tongues of skunk cabbage push up, pledges made by the swamp to keep faith with the sun.

Rust-stained steel pier above calm water on Fall Creek along Monkey Run trail

I came down to the water near an old steel pier, a bridge remnant, hanging on each end without purpose. It wears graffiti the way a boulder wears lichen; human wishes, briefly rooted, coloring what they can. The river accepts it all, the pilings and the scribbles, the cast limb and the bottle’s glint, and continues its one unarguable gesture downstream. That is the old instruction of Fall Creek: use, refuse, endure. Before the university drew students from every quarter, the creek turned wheels and powered the small ambitions of a frontier town. Even the name Triphammer speaks of iron struck to purpose. Now the water powers something quieter: the studies of herons, the almanacs of kingfishers, the quick arithmetic of minnows over limestone.

Looking back while climbing the steep bluff

Steps cut from logs ascend the bluff, each tread pegged with iron, each rise a short confession of breath. I climbed to the ridge, paused halfway, and through the gray lace of March branches saw the creek shining at a bend far below. A man cannot help but measure his own life against such a course. The path goes up and down in obedient red blazes, but the water keeps its own counsel. Where the bank slumps the river shoulders through; where the bottom rises it lays down a mirror. In my youth I wanted the straight run, the short work. Now the curve pleases me. To go with the current and not be carried away—that is a lesson suitable to the grey in my beard.

Clear, shallow run of Fall Creek with shale bottom and pine stand in distance
Bluff overlooking Fall Creek in summer

When I returned five months later, on August 23, the same path had forgotten the word austerity. The cathedral of sycamore was fully leafed, the white pillars now vanished behind a nave of shade. The pines perfumed the air without trying. A new footbridge—clean timber arching like a bent bow—spanned one of the wet flats. Its braces, black-bolted and handsome, looked as if they would hold the weight of an ox team or a file of schoolchildren. Such crossings are a kind of promise from the present to the future: we found a way through here; may you, too. Below, the floor was upholstered with moss, oak leaves, and a scatter of pinecones—the slow currency of the woods accumulating interest.

Arched wooden footbridge in summer forest on Cornell’s Monkey Run trail.

Summer makes a confidant of every plant. Ferns unrolled their scripture at the bridge abutment; jewelweed held its tiny lanterns along the seeps; a kingfisher rattled downstream, blue lightning with a bill. The creek, glassy over its shale pavement, showed every wrinkle of its stride. I waded a little, feeling with the sole what the eye could not—where the current took an extra thought around a stone, where it forgot itself in a warm eddy. Trout lingered in the dimmer reaches, quick as commas; a great blue heron lifted off with that surprising tidiness of wing, ungainly only in our imagination.

In all seasons the trail carries two histories: one written in rock and water, the other in the footfall of people. Cornell’s founders, Ezra and Andrew White, believed the university should place the hand near the thing studied; here that principle is plain. Botany students take their lectures in leaf and bark; geologists read the creek banks as if the pages might soon turn by themselves; children learn the oldest calculus—how long a stick will float before it catches in the weeds. The caretakers from the Botanic Gardens mark, mend, and interpret, but they do not overtalk. The woods speak enough.

Moss, grass and pinecones on an overlook of Fall Creek

As the afternoon eased toward evening, I climbed once more to the bluff. The light had gone honey-colored and the leaves of the maples, those careful accountants of September, were just beginning to weigh their green against gold. I looked down on the bend where I’d stood in March—cold, bright, expectant—and felt the year’s circle gently close. As John Burroughs wrote, “The power to see straight is the rarest of gifts… to be able to detach yourself and see the thing as it actually is, uncolored or unmodified by your own… prepossessions… that is to be an observer and to read the book of nature aright.” Monkey Run obliges that humility. The creek moves as it always has—glacially taught, mill-forged, campus-wise, and freedom-loving—and the trail, with its modest stairs and honest bridges, invites us to walk beside it, to match our breath to its turnings, and to leave, if we can, a lighter trace than we found.

References

Ways of Nature (1905), “Reading the Book of Nature,” pp. 275–276 (The Writings of John Burroughs, Riverside ed., vol. XIV, Houghton Mifflin)

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The Mathematical Beauty of Autumn Leaves

Here I reflect on the mathematical beauty of falling leaves from two trees, revealing order amidst perceived chaos in nature’s patterns.

MichaelStephenWills17 Comments

Standing before these two trees on a unseasonably warm autumn day, I am struck by the intricate patterns of their fallen leaves. Against the vibrant green of the grass, the golden leaves form halos around the trunks, as if nature herself were sketching mandalas. There’s something profoundly mathematical about these arrangements—a quiet order amidst what might initially seem like chaos.

The first tree, its barren branches reaching skyward, stands on a carpet of yellow that radiates outward in near-perfect symmetry. The leaves have fallen in such a way that their density decreases as the distance from the trunk increases. It reminds me of the inverse square law—a principle in physics that governs how light, gravity, and sound diminish with distance. Here, instead of energy dispersing, it’s the leaves thinning out, their graceful scatter dictated by the wind’s whims and gravity’s pull. There’s an undeniable harmony in this seemingly random process, a convergence of natural forces creating an elegant gradient.

Stewart Park, Ithaca, New York

The second tree presents a different story, yet one equally mesmerizing. Its leaves, still clinging in part to the branches, form a looser ring at the base. The distribution is uneven, hinting at prevailing winds or the sheltering influence of nearby buildings. But even in this asymmetry, I see fractals—the self-similar patterns that repeat at different scales throughout nature. Look closely, and you’ll notice clusters of leaves mimicking the broader structure of the canopy above. It’s as if the tree’s essence is echoed in the ground below, a reminder of how deeply interconnected every part of a system can be.

Robinia pseudoacacia, commonly known as the black locust

These patterns invite reflection on the mathematical principles governing our world. Fibonacci sequences, golden ratios, and fractals—abstract concepts are not confined to textbooks. They are etched into the fabric of existence, visible in the spiral of a sunflower’s seeds, the curve of a nautilus shell, and the fall of leaves beneath a tree. Even the chaos of autumn is underpinned by order, a dance choreographed by countless variables: the angle of the branches, the strength of the wind, the moisture in the air.

I find myself wondering about the unseen forces at play. How many leaves fell straight down, obeying only gravity? How many were carried aloft by a breeze before settling farther afield? Could we model these patterns with algorithms, tracing the arc of each leaf’s descent? Would the data reveal a perfect equation, or would it remind us that some mysteries resist full comprehension?

As I stand here, I feel a deep gratitude for these natural equations. They ground me in the present moment while also connecting me to the infinite. The pattern of leaf fall is a reminder of life’s balance: chaos and order, randomness and structure, fleeting moments and timeless principles. The trees, now shedding their golden crowns, invite me to pause, observe, and marvel at the beautiful mathematics of autumn.

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Buttonbush: The Secret Geometry of Wetlands

Discover the Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis), a wetland shrub of spherical blooms, sustaining pollinators, birds, and waterfowl while reminding us of life’s enduring cycles

MichaelStephenWills9 Comments

In the quiet wetlands of late summer, when cattails lift their brown torches above the reeds and dragonflies skim the still water, there is a shrub that speaks in spheres. Its language is not the pointed spear of grass or the broad fan of lily pads, but the perfect symmetry of globes—round, intricate, and startling in their precision. This is the Buttonbush, Cephalanthus occidentalis, a native of swamps, pond margins, and the soft, yielding soils where water shapes the land.

At first glance, its clusters might be mistaken for something fashioned by human hands: spiky balls arrayed along slender stems, each one a small planet bristling with tiny cells. Only in memory can we recall their summer incarnation, when each ball was a constellation of snowy blossoms, white tubular flowers extending like delicate pins from a spherical center. Bees and butterflies crowded them then, drunk on nectar, wings glinting in the sun. Hummingbirds darted in as though drawn by an unseen magnet, their beaks fitting perfectly into the narrow blossoms, a partnership written long ago in the shared script of evolution.

Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) at Sapsucker Woods, Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Now, in August’s waning light, those blossoms have folded back into seed, transforming into the russet orbs captured in the photograph. What was once nectar is now promise—food for ducks, shorebirds, and the small lives that depend on wetlands for sustenance. In the hands of buttonbush, time itself is circular. Flower becomes fruit, fruit becomes seed, seed becomes shrub, and the cycle spins quietly on, just as the spheres themselves suggest: complete, unbroken, eternal.

A Wetland Companion

Buttonbush is rarely alone. It thrives where cattails whisper, where pickerelweed thrusts up spikes of purple bloom, where the air holds the scent of waterlogged earth. Its roots grip the muck at the edges of ponds and rivers, holding soil against the restless tug of currents. In doing so, it becomes part of the unseen architecture that holds wetlands together, slowing erosion, filtering water, providing shelter for fish in the shade of its stems.

Pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata) at Sapsucker Woods, Cornell Lab of Ornithology

This shrub, unassuming in stature, is an engineer of stability. It creates thickets where red-winged blackbirds perch, where frogs crouch in shade, where turtles bask on half-submerged branches. The wetlands of North America would be poorer without its presence, for it provides not just beauty but the scaffolding upon which entire communities of life depend.

The Human Thread

To the human eye, the buttonbush’s spherical blooms are so striking that they demand metaphor. Some have called them pincushions, others tiny planets, others fireworks arrested in mid-burst. Native American peoples, however, looked beyond metaphor to medicine. The bark and roots were used in remedies for ailments ranging from headaches to fevers, though with caution, for the plant holds mild toxicity when consumed raw. It is a reminder that many gifts of the natural world are edged with danger, and that wisdom lies in balance.

Today, gardeners and conservationists plant buttonbush intentionally. It is welcomed into rain gardens, where its thirst for moisture makes it a perfect ally for absorbing stormwater. It is used in wetland restoration projects, where its deep roots anchor new life. And it is cherished by those who walk the edges of ponds and discover in its round blossoms a geometry that feels both wild and deliberate, a gift of design from the living earth.

Fourth of July, 2019, Stewart Park

The Sphere as Symbol

Rachel Carson once wrote that in nature, “nothing exists alone.” The buttonbush embodies this truth with clarity. Its spheres are invitations, junctions where plant and pollinator meet, where flower and bird share a moment of mutual necessity. They are offerings to the eye as well, challenging us to see patterns where we might otherwise see only happenstance.

Standing before a buttonbush in bloom, one feels an almost childlike wonder: how could such symmetry arise unbidden from soil and sunlight? Yet this is the miracle of evolution, that order may spring from chance, that beauty may serve survival, that what pleases our senses also sustains life.

A Closing Reflection

In the wetlands, where water mirrors the sky, the buttonbush offers its own reflection of completeness. Its seed heads persist through autumn and winter, small orbs clinging even when leaves fall, reminders that the cycles of life turn steadily beneath the stillness.

To linger with buttonbush is to be reminded of nature’s quiet insistence on wholeness. It speaks in forms: round, repeating, enduring. To walk away from it is to carry a sense of connection, to know that in the pattern of its blooms we glimpse a truth both humble and profound—that life is not a line but a circle, and in every turning there is renewal.

For Further Reading

USDA NRCS. Plant Guide: Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis L.). United States Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service. Available online: https://plants.usda.gov
– Provides detailed information on identification, habitat, and ecological role.

Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. Cephalanthus occidentalis (Common Buttonbush). Native Plant Information Network. Available online: https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=ceoc2
– Covers botanical features, bloom time, wildlife value, and landscape use.

Dirr, Michael A. Manual of Woody Landscape Plants: Their Identification, Ornamental Characteristics, Culture, Propagation and Uses. 6th Edition. Stipes Publishing, 2009.
– Authoritative horticultural reference on Buttonbush and other shrubs.

Peterson, Roger Tory, and Margaret McKenny. A Field Guide to Wildflowers: Northeastern and North-central North America. Houghton Mifflin, 1968.
– Classic field guide covering buttonbush’s wetland habitat.

Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Houghton Mifflin, 1962.
– Source of the quoted passage: “In nature nothing exists alone.” (Chapter 2, “The Obligation to Endure”).

Moerman, Daniel E. Native American Ethnobotany. Timber Press, 1998.
– Comprehensive reference documenting traditional medicinal uses of Buttonbush among Native American peoples.

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The Secret Life of Woodland Plants: Jack-in-the-Pulpit Insights

In the hush of the forest, Jack-in-the-Pulpit speaks—not with sound, but with form and patience, reminding us that some sermons rise quietly from the earth.

MichaelStephenWills19 Comments

You could walk past it a hundred times and never notice. There, beneath the low canopy of midsummer, where light is sifted through green, Arisaema triphyllum stands with the discretion of a shadow. Jack-in-the-Pulpit, they call it—a name as strange and gentle as the plant itself. But neither common name nor scientific binomial quite captures the feeling that you are being addressed when you encounter one.

A young Jack-in-the-pulpit under its leaf canopy along the gorge trail of Filmore Glen.

A mature Jack-in-the=pulpit flower with purple trillium, Fillmore Glen.

Earlier in the year, it raised a hooded spathe above the forest floor, curving protectively over a pale central spadix—the “Jack.” It looked like a figure delivering a sermon to the moss and littered leaves. Now, that sermon has passed, and the speaker has fallen silent. What remains is a column of tight green berries, glinting softly in the dappled light. They are not yet ripe, but the promise is there. In time, they will glow red like embers in the undergrowth.

Summertime, Sapsucker Woods. I might use a colloquialism and call this plant a “Jill”….and the real twist? Jack might’ve started out giving sermons but give them a good season and a strong root system, and Jack becomes Jill. It’s sequential hermaphroditism at its finest—Mother Nature’s version of career flexibility.

There is something ancient about this plant, as if it remembers a forest before our footsteps came. Its roots delve deep, not just into the soil, but into time. A corm, nestled beneath the leaf mold, waits out the harsh seasons, unseen but enduring. It is not a showy plant. It is a plant that trusts quiet. That survives on patience.

A closer look at the unripe berries.

The forest is full of these secret lives—beings that do not shout to be known. Jack-in-the-Pulpit speaks softly, in a dialect of leaf and shade and seasonal return. It is a plant you find when you have slowed down enough to belong again to the forest’s rhythm, when you’ve traded the voice in your head for the breath of leaf litter underfoot.

From Fillmore Glen

Some would call it just another spring ephemeral, a curiosity among many. But to walk away from it without feeling a kind of reverence would be to miss the point. It is not there to impress. It is there to remind.

That not all things are revealed at once.
That sermons come in many forms.
And that in the hush of the forest, something is always speaking—if only we remember how to listen.

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Unveiling the Ancient Beauty of Interrupted Ferns

In the hush of Sapsucker Woods, Interrupted Ferns unfurl their ancient green with quiet grace—guardians of time, rooted in myth, memory, and moss.

MichaelStephenWills13 Comments


In a shaded hollow of Sapsucker Woods, where the hush of ancient time lingers like mist among the trees, the Interrupted Fern rises from the soft, damp floor with a quiet grace. Its fronds, broad and arching, seem less grown than unfurled—as if unrolling a memory held for millions of years.

The plant’s name, Osmunda claytoniana, carries echoes of two worlds. “Osmunda,” perhaps once spoken in the sacred groves of northern Europe, is thought to honor a forgotten god—Osmunder, one of Thor’s names, a guardian of strength and storm. The species name pays tribute to John Clayton, an early colonial botanist who walked Virginia’s forests centuries ago and recognized in this fern a quiet marvel worth remembering.

And so this plant, whose lineage reaches back more than 200 million years, is rooted not just in soil and stone, but in language and lore.

The fern’s common name—Interrupted—describes the curious habit of its fertile fronds, which rise briefly in midsummer, dark and beadlike, then wither and vanish, leaving a ghostly gap midway up the blade. It is as though the plant had paused mid-sentence, letting silence speak where others would persist. In this interruption, the forest itself seems to take a breath.

The roots of Osmunda claytoniana twist into fibrous mats beneath the soil. These rhizomes, dense and springy, were once harvested as osmunda fiber, prized by horticulturists for cradling delicate orchids—a gentle reminder of how often nature’s strength serves human fragility. And though the Interrupted Fern is not celebrated in pharmacopeias, its kin were used by Indigenous peoples as poultices for wounds, or brewed into mild tonics to ease internal aches—suggesting a long, quiet partnership with humankind.

Forest Floor in Sapsucker Woods on a summer afternoon

There is little need for blossoms or fragrance here. The beauty of this fern is in its restraint. Its fronds do not shout, but rather whisper of deep time, of shaded ravines and glacial meltwaters, of forests that once stood where oceans now roll. Some said ferns were touched by magic—that they bloomed only on Midsummer’s Eve and vanished before the eye could see. The Interrupted Fern, with its appearing and disappearing fronds, might well have inspired such tales.

And so, in the filtered light beneath the canopy, this ancient fern lives on—not as a relic, but as a quiet thread in the fabric of the living forest. To stand in its presence is to feel a kind of reverence—not for what is rare, but for what endures.

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Exploring Sims-Jennings Preserve: A Nature Lover’s Delight

A walk through Sims-Jennings Preserve unveils ancient cliffs, vibrant bird calls, and the quiet wisdom of maples and waterfalls along Cayuga Lake’s forested edge.

MichaelStephenWills15 Comments

I arrive early, the sun still climbing its slow arc, brushing the eastern sky in pastels as I step into the Sims-Jennings Preserve at Cayuga Cliffs. The trailhead, tucked neatly along NYS Route 34B, is a doorway into an ancient chapter of the Finger Lakes—one rich with the scent of moss, the hush of leaf-dappled silence, and the layered echoes of stone and birdsong.

The first thing that strikes me is the expanse of mowed meadow, rimmed with goldenrod and patches of milkweed. From here, the land rolled gently westward until it ends abruptly in cliffs that plummeted toward Cayuga Lake. A map at the entrance speaks of the Sherburne and Renwick Formations, shale and siltstone laid down when the land was covered in warm Devonian seas. The cliffs themselves stand like watchmen over time, protecting 4,000 feet of lakeshore from erosion, whispering tales older than mammals.

A side trail leads to this mowed meadow and Cayuga Lake overlook

On the meadow edge is this Carya ovata, or shagbark hickory, unmistakable from its elongated leaflets and distinctive bark that peeled in long, curled strips. The leaves shimmered in the breeze, their green etched with pale speckles of recent rain, as if nature herself had hand-painted them.

Shagbark Hickory on the edge of meadow.
Leaves of the Shagbark Hickory
Shagbark Hickory bark / trunk

I follow the yellow-blazed trail into a thicket where tall sugar maples—Acer saccharum—arched overhead. Their leaves caught the morning light, each palm-sized blade glowing like a shard of stained glass.



Throughout the preserve I find large holes like these in a pine tree snag, the work of a Pileated Woodpecker.

A sudden fluting note from the trees stops me in my tracks. “Ee-oh-lay,” the Wood Thrush sang, its call cascading through the forest like water over stone. Moments later, the rapid, accelerating trill of an Ovenbird joins in—a sound like “teacher-teacher-teacher” echoing from the understory. The forest is alive.

Watch on YouTube for the best experience.

I descend into the shade. A narrow stream runs over the flat gray ledges of the Ludlowville Formation, forming delicate waterfalls no taller than a man but intricate as lace. One fall, framed by a colonnade of black cherry and beech trees, poured over stone like a ribbon of silk. The water’s voice changed with each ledge—first a murmur, then a chuckle, then quiet confidence as it wound through the woods.

Here, a Scarlet Tanager flashes like flame through the canopy, its red feathers shocking against the sea of green. Above, the Eastern Wood-Pewee calles its own name from a high perch—“pee-a-wee”—a humble herald of summer. Lower down, a Tufted Titmouse flits from branch to branch, a gray blur with a whistle like curiosity incarnate.

Further along, a looping vine coils around a pair of trees like an ancient signature. Possibly a native bittersweet, its woody stem thick as a child’s arm. It reminds me of how all life here is entangled—flora, fauna, stone, and stream woven into one vast web.

I pause at the overlook, where the trail skirts the cliffs. From this height, the view opened to Cayuga Lake, vast and gleaming in the morning light. Across the water, the hills of the western shore softened into a watercolor horizon.

Crowbar Point on the west lake shore is visible, partially hidden by trees. Sims-Jennings Preserve at Cayuga Cliffs, Finger Lakes Land Trust on a May morning 2025, Lansing, Tompkins County, Finger Lakes Region

On the walk back, a robin sings its measured phrases from a nearby hawthorn, and I think how common birds often hold the deepest solace. The robin’s voice rises above the silence, not grand, not rare, but reassuring in its familiarity—like a good friend’s greeting.

A shale ledge, Renwick Formation (?)

I leave the preserve changed gently, like the soft indent of a footstep in moss. The Sims-Jennings Preserve at Cayuga Cliffs is a place that reminds you to listen. To the birds, to the trees, to your own breath. And in listening, you remember what it means to be wholly present in the world.

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On The Edge of Time Above Taughannock Gorge

Perched above Taughannock Gorge, a moss-covered ledge and cascading falls reveal ancient stories—where Devonian seas once flowed and time’s layers whisper through stone and water.

MichaelStephenWills5 Comments

The morning sun had only just breached the rim of the gorge, sending long slants of golden light across the forest floor. Walking the South Rim Trail of Taughannock Falls State Park, I came upon a quiet, unassuming spot—just a few paces off the path—where the forest seemed to pause in reverence. What greeted me was a small marvel of persistence and time.

There, rooted precariously atop a slab of brittle shale, was a tenacious shrub rising from a bed of moss, its spindly frame etched in sharp contrast to the soft, green sprawl beneath it. The moss had taken hold on a shelf of rock cantilevered over the gorge like a green tongue of earth defying gravity. Cracks traced the shale’s surface like veins, silent records of the forces that shaped this place—heat, ice, pressure, time. Together, the moss and the bush formed an improbable community, surviving against odds, bound together by the thin soil cradled in stone.

This ledge, suspended over the abyss, seemed less a part of the earth than a question it asked—how much life can cling to the edge before the edge itself gives way?

Beneath this living fragment, the gorge dropped away. Layers upon layers of shale revealed themselves, stacked like a collapsed library of time. Here, the Devonian Period lies exposed to wind and rain, and to those willing to pause and wonder. Each stratum holds the fossil whisper of ancient seas, where trilobites scuttled and coral reefs once stood. This gorge was not carved quickly. It was not born of a moment, but of many—countless raindrops, millennia of ice melt, the slow, sure work of water over stone.

From this natural balcony, I looked out and down to the gorge floor where the creek shaped the land with an artist’s patient hand. The falls, seen from above, no longer thundered—they danced. Spread like the folds of a fan, water curled over smooth stone in steps of white silk. From here, the cascade looked deliberate, choreographed—an elemental performance halfway between gravity and grace.

How many times had this water flowed, reshaped, receded? How often had it carved these grooves, smoothed those ridges, erased the footprints of what came before? Looking at the exposed rock, one could trace the signature of ancient glaciers, feel the memory of long-gone floods. It was humbling—this intersection of change and continuity.

Above it all, the trees stood still. Pine and oak, rooted well back from the edge, offered a kind of sentinel presence. Their shadows stretched long and angled, tracing the contours of both earth and memory. For a moment, I let go of all thought and simply listened—to the murmur of wind through leaves, the faint rush of water far below, and the silence that presses in when the land itself seems to be remembering.

This spot—so easily missed by a hurried hiker—offered a parable of resilience and impermanence. The moss did not grow with certainty, nor the shrub reach with confidence. They survived on the edge because they adapted. They made do with less. They took root where others could not. There was no security in that place, only presence. Only the now.

And isn’t that a lesson worth carrying?

We so often seek stability, firm ground, a clear path. Yet, some of the most beautiful things live just beyond comfort—on ledges, in cracks, in the margins of the known. To pause here was to acknowledge that life thrives not only in sheltered valleys but also at the edge of what seems possible.

As I stepped back onto the trail and continued along the South Rim, the image of that mossy outcrop stayed with me. I carried it in my thoughts like a talisman—proof that even on the brink, life finds a way. And that from above, the most chaotic falls can appear as ordered motion, as a flow toward something larger.

Later, when the sun climbed higher and the light lost its slant, I would look back on this moment not as a spectacular highlight but as something more intimate: a quiet encounter with nature’s subtle artistry, its layered truths, and its enduring invitation to look closely, feel deeply, and walk softly.

For here, above the gorge, at the edge of earth and time, even a whisper leaves a mark.

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Discovering Stillness in Nature’s Embrace

A bench beside a cedar, unchanged through time, stirred memory and gratitude—reminding me that some places wait quietly, holding space until we find them again.

MichaelStephenWills13 Comments

A lingering memory hovers over this spot. The soft crunch of gravel beneath my boots, the filtered light through pine and oak, the scent of warm stone and moss—all of it felt at once familiar and distant, like a half-remembered tune that returns in full when you hear the first few notes. I hadn’t thought about the simple bench until I turned the bend this summer day on the South Rim Trail.

It was still there. The same humble bench nestled beside a cedar, its weathered frame now bearing the patina of years. The tree remained slightly bowed as if in silent conversation with the bench it had embraced.. The space between them, still and shaded, seemed to invite reflection without demanding it.

Welcome Summertime Shade

I sat down, letting the moment settle around me. In the gorge below, water moved quietly through sculpted shale, the same layered gray that once caught my attention through a camera lens long packed away. From this overlook, the view had scarcely changed: stone and water, green clinging to cliff, sky rolling in above it all. My photograph captures it now just as it might have then—perhaps from the same angle. The gorge unfolding in a graceful arc, with trees perched impossibly along the sheer face.

It struck me, not as a grand revelation but with quiet certainty, that very few places in life offer such stillness. So much shifts in the world—landscapes erode, trails are rerouted, lives move forward. Yet here I was again, sitting in the same spot, as though the intervening decades had folded in on themselves.

The Why for the Bench

Back then, I had rested here out of curiosity, pausing to take in the view, enjoy a respite. Now, I sat with a deeper kind of stillness. The second photograph holds the space as I found it—quiet, dappled with shadow, edges softened by time. The fence beyond it remains, unchanged, a modest boundary between the trail and the deep gorge beyond.

I don’t remember what thoughts filled my mind that first time. But today, a kind of gentle gratitude rose instead. Gratitude for the bench, yes—but also for the path that led me here again, for the act of remembering, and for the rare gift of finding something familiar, something steady.

Left Behind or an Offering?

A final image frames just the bench, its surface worn smooth, its structure slightly leaning now. A single flower petal had fallen on the wood—a quiet grace note in the morning light. I stood and took that last photo as a way of holding the moment, though I knew no picture could fully capture what it meant to find something that had waited without fanfare.

As I turned and walked back along the rim, I felt lighter. Not because time had reversed or been conquered, but because it had been witnessed—and somehow, that was enough.

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Discovering Trillium Species: Beauty in Diversity

A reflective springtime journey through Robert H. Treman and Fillmore Glen State Parks reveals the quiet beauty and botanical mysteries of red and white trilliums—exploring their species differences, color shifts, and the wonder of their ephemeral blooms.

MichaelStephenWills41 Comments

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Late April – Robert H. Treman State Park

I follow a winding trail through hemlock and maple woods, the air cool and earthy after a spring rain. Under the canopy of budding leaves, I spot a flash of deep burgundy among the moss. Kneeling, I find a red trillium blooming at the base of an old oak. Its three velvety petals are a rich wine color against the green moss and damp leaf litter. A faint musky scent wafts from the flower – no wonder some call it “Stinking Benjamin.” Nearby stands another trillium, but this one is a pristine white star facing upward toward the light. Its broad petals have a gentle wavy edge and no noticeable odor. The red flower droops modestly while the white one opens itself to the sky. Different in color and posture, I realize these are two distinct species1 sharing the same springtime stage.

Red trilliums (Trillium erectum) and white trilliums (Trillium grandiflorum) thrive side by side on the mossy roots of a tree. The maroon “wake robin” flowers nod toward the earth, while the white blooms stand upright to catch the light.

Seeing the red and white blooms side by side feels like meeting two woodland siblings – each unique yet part of the same family. The white trillium is almost luminous in the forest gloom, while the red trillium blends into the shadows with its dark hues. Both emerge from the soil after long, cold months, timing their bloom for the brief sunny window before the trees fully leaf out. Knowing how slowly these perennials grow and how long they live makes their yearly return even more special to witness. Their resilience in coming back each spring fills me with quiet awe.

Early May – Fillmore Glen State Park

A week later, I wander the lush gorge of Fillmore Glen. The trail is alive with birdsong and the rush of a creek. Dappled sunlight slips through the greening canopy, illuminating patches of the forest floor. Rounding a bend, I catch my breath — the hillside ahead is blanketed with hundreds of white trilliums, a breathtaking constellation of blooms across the ground that feels almost sacred. Careful not to tread on any, I step closer to admire them at eye level.

Up close, one large white trillium reveals a surprise: a delicate wash of pink across its aging petals, as if it were blushing. It’s known that after pollination the snow-white petals of Trillium grandiflorum often turn rose-pink with age2. Indeed, many blossoms here wear a faint pink tint, especially those that have been open for a while. This blush of maturity gives the colony a quietly celebratory air – fresh ivory blooms mingling with older siblings tinted softly rose.

The petals of a white trillium take on a soft pink blush as the flower ages, adding a new hue to the spring palette. Fresh white trilliums bloom in the background while older ones show a rosy tint.

In a shaded nook at the edge of the colony, a lone red trillium blooms among the white. I wonder if the red and white trilliums ever hybridize. I see no intermediate colors and recall that the white trillium rarely hybridizes with other species3. The red trillium, by contrast, can swap pollen with certain close relatives, yielding various forms elsewhere. But a true red–white cross never occurs here – each species keeps to its own.

Trillium bloom April through May in central New York State. I found these blooming on the rim of Fillmore Glen near Owasco Lake and the town of Moravia.

The red trillium even has a rare white-petaled form4 easily mistaken for its white-flowered cousin. I linger a bit longer among these graceful “trinity flowers,” my questions answered and my appreciation deepened. As I turn to go, a sunbeam breaks through and illuminates one last trillium by the trail, its white petals touched with pink. I smile, grateful for the chance to witness this woodland wonder.

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Footnotes

  1. Different species: Red trillium and white trillium are separate species (Trillium erectum and Trillium grandiflorum, respectively), distinguished by traits like flower orientation and petal shapeidentifythatplant.com.
  2. White petals turn pink: The large white trillium’s petals are pure white upon opening but gradually develop a rose-pink or purple tint as the flower agesnj.gov.
  3. Rare hybridization: Unlike some trilliums that hybridize readily, Trillium grandiflorum (white trillium) is not known to form hybrids with other speciesen.wikipedia.org. Trillium erectum can hybridize with its close relatives, but a red–white trillium cross is not observed in nature.
  4. White form of red trillium: Trillium erectum (normally red) has a variety with white petals, classified as T. erectum var. album, which can be mistaken for a white trillium at a glancemidatlanticnature.blogspot.com.