Botanical Surveys

The RLT has an ongoing project called the "Botany Project." It involves the production of complete botanical surveys of some of the major natural areas of Rensselaer County, including plant collections.

The RLT has established a model for other local land trusts with its botanical projects, thanks in part to professional and expert amateur botanists serving both on our Board and as volunteers. We first used a grant from the Sweetwater Trust to develop a database and enter information on all Rensselaer County specimens in the Herbarium of the New York State Museum. We subsequently received legislative initiative funding through State Senator Joseph Bruno's office to conduct detailed botanical studies at the Grafton Lakes State Park, Dyken Pond Environmental Education Center and the RLT's Butternut Hill preserve. These studies included complete vouchered plant collections from each park or preserve and computer-generated maps showing collection locations. The vouchered plant specimens are housed in the State Museum's Herbarium.

In addition, the RLT compiled land use history and land cover information for these parks and preserves, and created ecological community maps of both parks in our Geographic Information System (GIS), maps which have become a prototype for mapping ecological communities in other natural areas. A limited number of copies of the lengthy, comprehensive reports were prepared on the botanical resources of each of these three areas, and were donated to selected libraries, schools and government offices. A few remaining copies of these reports are available gratis from the RLT for the cost of postage and shipping.

The RLT continues to conduct serious botanical study at important natural areas such as Oakwood Cemetery and Lock 4 Canal Park. Reports and maps similar to those mentioned above will be compiled to document the botanical resources of these additional areas.

If you know of any unusual plants found growing in the wild anywhere in Rensselaer County, please contact either Bob Ingalls or Warren Broderick, R-TLC Directors, by calling (518) 238-2832, or by e-mailing This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Please note that in the case of endangered plants or any plants found in small numbers at any location, only a part of the plant (such a stem or a few leaves and flowers) is collected for the Herbarium. In that way rare plant populations are not depleted by our botanical project.

Natural History Information

Extracted from Botanical Inventory of the Dyken Pond Environmental Education Center, as revised, 1999

The study area includes land owned by Rensselaer County which constitutes the Dyken Pond Environmental Education Center (125.83 acres), as well as three private parcels of property: the Broderick/Olsen property (24 acres), the Broderick property (formerly lots #3 and #4 of the Koch property, 62 acres), the remaining Koch property (lots 1 and 2 totaling 48 acres) and the LaPides property (60 acres). In addition, the surface of Dyken Pond itself (comprising 144.88 acres) was studied, as well as two small islands in the pond. The entire study area comprises 404.64 acres, 259.83 aside from the pond surface. The elevation ranges from 1585 feet (in a wetland on Lot #1 on the Koch property) to 1800 feet (on the Osgood parcel.)>

The Center was established by Rensselaer County in 1973. It was enlarged with the addition of the Teal parcel (14 acres) in Grafton in 1990, the Eischen parcel (10 acres) in Poestenkill in 1990, the Mulson parcel (19 acres) in Poestenkill in 1991 and the Osgood parcel (50 acres) in Grafton in 1991. The Center lies on the Rensselaer Plateau in the towns of Berlin, Grafton and Poestenkill.

The study area was part of the Middletown and Roxborough divisions of the Manor of Rensselaerswyck, surveyed ca. 1790 but not settled until after 1810. The old road running north from the director's residence, however, may be part of an early ca. 1780 road running north/south on the Rensselaer Plateau, connecting the ca. 1752 "Albany Road" in Poestenkill with the ca. 1777 "Owen Road" in Grafton. Until ca. 1840, hunting, trapping and lumbering were the principal activities. The area was not extensively farmed at an early date because of the cold, rocky soil and isolated location, but contained four farms by the mid-1800s. These farmsites consisted of: 1.) abandoned house site on Lot #1 of the Koch property; 2.) a former farm house (later converted to a sawmill) in the current old field south of Dyken Pond Road on the Long Trail (this was the Wager farm, dating to ca. 1810); 3.) the Abbt farm (the current director's residence); and 4.) a former farm house on the west side of the old road on the LaPides property. For some time, Dyken Pond Road only extended eastward as far as the Long Trail; it was not extended to the Abbt farm until the 1930s. Access to the Abbt farm was gained from the old north/south running road. By 1900, most all the timber had been removed for agriculture and the lumber, charcoal and tanning industries.

These farms became abandoned in the early to mid-twentieth century. Farming ceased on the LaPides property in the 1920s, on the Koch property in the 1950s, and on Abbt farm in the 1960s. Hay was mowed on the old meadow on the Osgood property as late as the 1960s. Other than a few acres of open uplands, the entire study area not under water has reverted to forest. Dyken Pond and South Long Pond originally comprised two small separate natural ponds prior to construction of the dam in 1902. The larger lake was created by the Manning Paper Company to control water downstream in the Poesten Kill. Before the construction of the dam, these smaller ponds were connected by a small stream (where a sawmill was located in the mid-nineteenth century). These ponds were surrounded by fens and other wetlands which are now largely flooded. Manning Paper Co. constructed the three cabins along the lake for use by their employees.

Oakwood Cemetery is probably the most botanically diverse locality in Rensselaer County. More than 600 different plants have been collected growing in the wild in Oakwood. Within the cemetery boundaries are grassy exposed rocky ridges with almost prairie-like conditions, deep shale ravines cut by falling streams and bordered by steep cliffs, and rich Appalachian oak-hickory and beech-maple mesic forest natural communities. There are also significant areas of shale cliff and talus community, shale talus slope woodland, and pitch pine-oak-heath rocky summit. A rocky headwater stream is found here as well, and a small but important area of rocky summit grassland.

The cemetery contains some disjunct populations of more western or southern species than are generally found in this part of the state, or plants found at the eastern or northern limits of their natural range. A number of State-listed rare, threatened or endangered native plants have been found at Oakwood. In particular, Panicum liebergii (a panic grass) is found growing wild only in Oakwood Cemetery in New York State. In addition, in the century and a half since ornamentals were first planted in the landscaped rural cemetery, a number of unusual garden escapes have become naturalized in both lawns and wild areas.