Fox Maple Woods contains a block of northern mesic forest and sedge meadow in northwestern Florence County.  STH 70 bisects the property, though the vast majority and more interesting portions lie north of the highway.  A parking area provides easy access to the forest.

A faint trail leads northwest from the parking area, but I found it to be not all that helpful or interesting.  The forest understory is fairly open with various ferns providing the dominant cover at the time of my visit.  Though it was not peak blooming season for very many species, a nice variety of insects were observed on the plants that were in bloom, including various skipper butterflies, robber flies, and bumblebees.  Wild leek was abundant, though not quite in bloom on the forest floor.  I explored the sedge meadow as well, but again the floral diversity was lacking on this visit.  Spring for the wildflowers or autumn for the fall colors would be more ideal times of year to visit this forest.

Forest

European Skipper

Sedge Meadow

Wild Leek

Forest

Fern Forest

Thistle

Sedge Meadow

More of my photos (and full-res) from Fox Maple Woods can be viewed here.

Just under 400 more blog posts to go!  Well, actually a few more than that remain; counting SNA’s delisted since I started and a few SNA’s to be designated, the current total is 689, though hopefully, that will increase!

If you would like to help support this project, please consider a donation.  There are many SNA’s yet to visit and even more to revisit and I ultimately plan to write a book about my adventures.  Thank you!

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