North Kingsville Sand Barrens
North Kingsville, Ashtabula County
118 acres
Significance
With its open sand barrens and dense swamp forest, North Kingsville Sand Barrens hosts an extraordinary variety of plant and animal life.
Fossil sand dunes have always been rare features of the northeast Ohio landscape.
Deposited more than 12,000 years ago along what once were beaches, these inland ridges made convenient sites for early roads and trails (U.S. Route 20 follows the Lake Warren beach Ridge, for example). As a consequence, nearly all of the dune habitats were lost to development. One outstanding fossil dune environment, however, was protected in 1990 as part of the Museum's preserve system. The North Kingsville Sand Barrens are only about a half mile from the present shore of Lake Erie, and it's easy to imagine waves lapping at the edges of the ancient lake that laid down these sands.
The preserve supports two Endangered plants, several rare species of beetles and a rare moss. The rolling sandy ground here is an oak savannah habitat extremely uncommon in this region. Prairie plants -- wild pea, lupine, and various goldenrods and asters -- that require open, sunlit areas are restricted to this area. Admiring its profusion of balloon-like purple flowers, it would be difficult to guess that lupine is Potentially-Threatened in Ohio. An equally beautiful though less obvious plant is the racemed milkwort, which in mid-summer produces intensely violet blossoms. This milkwort is threatened in Ohio, and the sand barrens is the only known local occurrence of it.
In 1997, an individual from Mansfield discovered and collected the first confirmed Ohio specimen of the moss, bug-on-a-stick (Buxbaumia aphylla). Bug-on-a-stick is historically known in Ohio from four counties, all based on literature references. It is one of the ephemeral annual mosses, appearing late in the summer, persisting through the winter and shedding its spores in May.
Surveys of the area also have turned up two rare grasses, pale green panic grass and American panic grass. The survival of these prairie species could have been aided by fires set periodically to keep the railway clear for locomotives. The sandy openings at the barrens also host unusual bees, wasps and beetles. When the Museum hired its beetle man, Harry Lee Jr. a self-trained entomologist who has identified more than 320 Ohio species of ground beetles, to do an inventory of the natural area, he found a beetle that had never before been seen in Ohio. The mysterious, dry-adapted beetle (Cymindus cribicollis) is so rare that its discovery has made the spot where it was collected one of the most important sites on the preserve. This organism will be used to help gauge the impact of stewardship efforts at the barrens.
Unlike some of the Museum's other natural areas, the sand barrens are not harmed by extensive educational use. In fact, Natural Areas Coordinator Jim Bissell says foot traffic seems to maintain the sandy openings favored by rare species. Members of the North Kingsville Stewardship Committee frequently volunteer to lead school groups through the area.
In contrast to the open dunes, a swamp forest dense with hemlock and hardwoods occupies the north end of the parcel. Clear springs continually moisten the rich, black soil in the primordial seeps here at the base of the dunes. This is where some of the rarest plants thrive. In May, the Endangered yellow clintonia, which has only two other known populations in Ohio, will show its bell-shaped lily flowers. The striped maple, an Endangered tree with distinctive bark, grows at the Sand Barrens, as well as at Cathedral Woods. In autumn, skunk cabbages poke their purplish heads up to the surface of the seeps, waiting for springtime to slowly unfurl their broad leaves.
Directions
Take I-90 to the Rt. 193 exit. Follow Rt. 193 north to US Rt. 20 east. Take U.S. Rt. 20 east to Poore Road. Travel north on Poore Road to the Conrail tracks. The preserve is on the west side of Poore Road, just north of the railroad tracks. A sign is located at its entrance.