Blakeslee/Barrows Preserve

Kingsville Township, Ashtabula County
North Kingsville Quad
140 acres

The Blakeslee/Barrows Preserve is an outstanding natural area, including the valley walls on both sides of Conneaut Creek. The river bed and floodplain throughout the property are pristine. High-quality emergent wetlands are present on one section of the creek. Many rare plants have been found on the property including pumpkin ash, clinton's wood fern and deer's-tongue arrowhead. Some of the wetlands within the floodplain also support breeding populations of wood frogs, mole salamanders and spring peepers. The preserve is one of two sites in Ashtabula County where both spotted and Jefferson salamanders have been found by the Museum's Vertebrate Zoology Department.

In 1996, Jim Bissell & Ann Barrows discovered the only known occurrence of a very rare hybrid, a cross between goldies' fern and clinton's wood-fern. The fern has not yet been described. The Museum's Blakeslee/Barrows Preserve will be the type-locality for the new hybrid fern.