Fox Nature Preserve is gifted with a beautiful forest canopy inhabited largely by our namesake tree, the oaks (genus Quercus). Oaks are such generous, long-lived trees. Throughout the hundreds of years that they grace a forest, they host and feed the world around them. Butterflies, moths and other insects turn their huge canopies into nurseries for their young, laying their eggs on bark and leaves where caterpillars hatch far out of sight from human eyes.

Birds spend cold winter days poking about the limbs for insect eggs, frozen larvae or pupae when food is scarce. And in the spring, thousands of tiny caterpillars are whisked away by parent birds feeding their ravenous young. Squirrels, blue jays, deer, rabbits, raccoons and possums relish their acorns, some of which are cached for the winter months.

But these days, most of the oak forests in our country are struggling to reproduce. Their young seedlings and saplings need full sun or at least dappled light, the spots of sun created by the large, sturdy leaves of the oaks. Native and non-native trees with dense, shady canopies moved into these upland forests when we humans suppressed fire for so many years. Understory trees proliferated, preventing sunlight from reaching the forest floor. Woodland wildflowers that once flourished in the dappled light of the forest floor struggle to emerge through the thick leaf litter accumulating year after year without fire to remove it.

Fox Nature Preserve’s Special Oak Woodlands

Back in 2019, Dr. Ben VanderWeide, our township Natural Areas Stewardship Manager recognized the upland forest, classified as “dry-mesic southern forest,” at Fox Nature Preserve as an important natural area within the park. He’d spotted native woodland wildflowers here and there on the darkened forest floor but not in great numbers. He noticed that even the native sedges had difficulty coping with the thick layer of leaf litter and the dense shade cast by many small red maples. He took the photo above of this woodland to document both its difficulties and its potential.

In the winter of 2021-22, the stewardship crew thinned the canopy, targeting mostly small diameter fire-sensitive trees that are known to degrade oak woodlands. We hoped to nurture more of our important oaks and to renew a healthy forest floor. Park neighbors had many questions about the process and its effects on the natural areas in the park, so we paused much of our natural areas management in the park. In 2023 we hired Michigan Natural Features Inventory (MNFI) to study the park and create a natural areas management plan to outline next steps to manage and restore the special plants, animals, and natural communities at this park. The MNFI scientists concurred that the dry-mesic southern forest was “among the highest quality areas in the park” and the MNFI experts recommended the continuation of canopy thinning (referred to as “mechanical treatment”) and “prescribed fire” as highest priority for managing this valuable forest.

We also continue to learn about how to best listen to our neighbors and park users. We want to better communicate why and how we do natural areas stewardship work, which is one of the reasons this website was created. We want to build supportive, informed communities that understand our work. For Fox Nature Preserve, we’ve formed a committee composed of two Park Commissioners, two Township Trustees, and two park neighbors to discuss and recommend natural areas management work at the park. The Fox Committee and our general parks Stewardship Committee meetings are open to the public, and you’re invited to attend if you’d like to learn more about our work.

Let There Be Light!

We are now beginning to see more sunlight reaching the forest floor as you can see above. Last summer native Pennsylvania Sedge (Carex pensylvanica) flourished there, beginning to reestablish in areas that used to be only leaf litter. White oak seedlings are common on the forest floor in many areas. The stewardship staff has scheduled a contractor to do a prescribed burn in the forest later this year or early next, with the recommendation of the Fox Nature Preserve Committee and approvals by the Park Commission and Township Board of Trustees.

A low prescribed burn will remove much of the the leaf litter, clearing space for seedlings to find a spot in the more dappled sunlight. Most of the flowering native plants in our forests have adapted to fire, due to thousands of years of natural lightning fires or fires used by native people clearing land for crops or to attract deer and other game. Prescribed fire returns the nutrients trapped in the leaves back into the soil, fertilizing and warming the forest floor.

Fox Nature Preserve’s Woodland Plants Survivors

Here are some of the native woodland wildflowers that Ben, the stewardship crew and I have seen in the Fox forest that we’d like to see spreading and blooming in more robust numbers. Some we’ve seen blooming; some Ben identified from leaves or seed pods.

Large-leaved Shinleaf (Pyrola elliptica)

I saw this plant in the winter of 2021 at the Fox forest, but only as two little leaves buried in the leaf litter. Ben saw it blossom in 2023! It blooms from June to August. The white blooms reportedly shine out in the forest in mid-summer, a time when few shade plants bloom.

Wintergreen/Teaberry (Gaultheria procumbens)

On the same day I got introduced to Shinleaf, Ben also identified Wintergreen for me. Again, it was nearly buried in the leaf litter but its green leaves caught my eye on that December day. This aromatic, evergreen ground cover adds its white bell-shaped blooms to the shade of the forest in the spring and follows up with bright red edible berries in the summer and fall. The USDA says it can cope with leaf litter but tends to bear fruit more successfully after the canopy is thinned – so maybe we’ll see more of this native ground cover!

Hog Peanut (Amphicarpaea bracteata)

Hog Peanut is listed on various native plants sites as benefiting from canopy opening. It’s a host plant for a fun, native butterfly, the Silver-Spotted Skipper (Epargyreus clarus) which I often see in our parks. (It’s pictured below on native Bee Balm.) Hog Peanut produces both open, cross-pollinated flowers which produce bean-like pods and self-pollinated flowers in round pods near the ground and occasionally underground. The seeds are eaten by Ruffed Grouse, Ring-necked Pheasant, Bobwhite and other birds and animals.

Four-leaved/Whorled Loosestrife (Lysimachia quadrifolia)

Like many woodland plants, delicate, sunny Four-leaved Loosestrife with its scarlet accents likes partial shade, about 2 to 6 hours of sun daily. Ben found some already growing at the edge of a woodland at Fox Nature Preserve where they could reach more sun – so let’s hope they spread!

Racemed Milkwort (Polygala polygama)

MNFI botanists Scott Warner discovered another delicate plant seeking the sun at the edge of the Fox forest. This little wildflower blooms on a raceme, i.e. a flowering spike at the end of the stem where the flowers open in succession rather than all at once. Wouldn’t it be lovely to see more of this one?

Black Huckleberry (Gaylussacia baccata)

This native shrub grows 1.5 to 3 feet tall and spreads like a ground cover. Ben identified it for me in 2020 in an open wooded area between Fox Nature Preserve and nearby Lost Lake Nature Park. I hope someday to see its berries before the birds and animals get to them!

Poke Milkweed (Asclepias exaltata)

I enjoy the white “fireworks” spray of the Poke Milkweed in one of my shade gardens. The bumblebees (genus Bombus) enjoy it too. The MNFI experts found a plant in the Fox forest and we’re hoping it will increase its numbers, too.

Common Frostweed (Crocanthemum canadense)

Common Frostweed gets its name from frozen sap extruded from cracks in the stem on cold fall mornings. Ben found several patches of frostweed on the edge of the oak woodland at Fox. Each bright yellow flower blooms in the spring but lasts only one day, so I haven’t been lucky enough to see one open yet. Nor did we catch a photo of one breaking forth with “frost” in the autumn. But I found photos of both stages of this plant at inaturalist.org. Frostweed flowers “don’t reward butterflies with nectar,” but small, native halictid bees collect pollen from them, according to the Illinois Wildflowers website.

Some Woodland Plants We’ll Hope For!

The native wildflowers below are ones that we’ve seen in or on the edge of open woodlands in other township parks that we hope to establish in the forest at Fox Nature Preserve. They show us what might appear at the Fox forest in the future.

Wood Betony (Pedicularis canadensis)

Native Wood Betony has such an unusual shape with its long, soft, often wavy leaves and short stature. It looks almost like its exploding with blossoms when it’s in full bloom. It likes full or partial sunlight and can prosper in woodlands and open forests if it finds a spot of sunlight. Like Smooth False Foxglove, Wood Betony is partially parasitic. Long-tongued Bumblebees (genus Bombus) and Mason bees (genus Osmia) land on the short lower lip of the flowers to find nectar.

Robin’s Plantain (Erigeron pulchellus)

The Illinois Wildflower website informed me that, “The best site [for Robin’s Plantain] consists of a partially shaded slope under trees where the ground vegetation is somewhat sparse.” The rolling forests at Fox Nature Preserve might provide just that kind of habitat as restoration of the forest continues.

Light Means More Life

Healthy oak forests and woodlands are special places, almost magical ones. No wonder so many of our childhood fairy tales take place in one! For thousands of years, oak woodlands sustained themselves, like most of our Michigan habitats, by adapting to periodic fire. Fire consumes the debris on the forest floor so native trees with their sturdy bark and woodland wildflowers with their deep roots can make a comeback after fire. Aging trees or large branches die and tumble to the ground, allowing bright sunlight to suddenly pour into the forest’s shade – and up come young oaks and fire-adapted wildflowers to begin their lives.

Raccoons, woodpeckers, squirrels, chipmunks, owls make their homes in the trees. Native bees drill their solitary holes in the ground beneath the trees and sip from native wildflowers.

Some adult butterflies, like the Mourning Cloak (Nymphalis antiopa) and Eastern Comma (Polygonia comma), slip under loose bark or into tree holes to weather the winter, relying on the “anti-freeze” glycol in their bodies to prevent freezing. Caterpillars chew their way through leaves in the woodland canopy and then in turn provide protein for baby birds in the spring and for adult birds on chilly winter days. Salamanders clamber down to woodland ponds to mate during spring rains, but trundle back to upland woods for the winter, where they burrow into the ground under the leaf litter.

That’s the natural cycle of life and death and life again that nature created and that we are trying to recreate at Fox Nature Preserve. It will take years of careful stewardship to restore these oak woodlands, but it will be worth the effort to save a habitat with so much potential for natural beauty, diversity and productivity. On a cold winter day in complicated times, that is reason for quiet celebration, don’t you think?