Rome Sand Plains

Rome Sand Plains is a 15,000-acre inland pine barrens within the city of Rome in Oneida County, New York consisting of a mosaic of high sand dunes and low peat bogs, mixed northern hardwood forests, meadows and wetlands. It is one of only a handful of inland pine barrens remaining in the United States. The sand plains were previously submerged under a glacial lake that covered much of central New York ten thousand years ago.

There are several rare species in the Sand Plains, including the purple pitcher plant and a sundew (both of which are carnivorous plants), red-shouldered hawks and martens and the threatened Frosted Elfin ("Incisalia irus"). Other species to be found include wild blue lupine, barrens buckmoth ("Hemileuca maia"), whippoorwill, pine warbler and pitch pine, normally indigenous to coastal areas. The one-mile Wood Creek trail is an interpretive nature trail.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation began purchasing lands at the Sand Plains in the 1980s, working with The Nature Conservancy and other organizations.

External links

* [http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/8080.html NYS DEC Rome Sand Plains, geology, history, maps]
* [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3845/is_199901/ai_n8828759 Historic and prehistoric changes in the Rome, New York pine barrens. In "Northeastern Naturalist", 1999, by Frank E Kurczewski]
* [http://nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/newyork/preserves/art11832.html The Nature Conservancy]