Fern Glenn Conservation Area

The trail in this 130-acre conservation area skirts gorgeous examples of two rare, contrasting natural community types: an extensive boreal swamp that dominates the eastern half of the property, and a woodland on steep talus slopes with huge old sugar maples, ash trees, and red oaks. Fern Glenn's name honors Glenn Freden, Mount Grace's forester when the trust began to manage the land, and recognizes the incredibly lush growth of ferns that give the forest understory and wetland a soft, feathery feel in the summer. Clubmosses including groundcedar, running pine, shining fir moss, and Hickey’s tree clubmoss run everywhere along the ground, looking from above like a miniature forest within a forest. Plant enthusiasts will find much to marvel at here, particularly along the fringes of the spruce-tamarack swamp where rose pogonia orchids bloom profusely in July.