Boreal Life Trail
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Boreal Life Slide Show

This 1.3-mile-loop begins at the gazebo, where you take a right. It passes through a forest of spruce, fir, pine, hemlock, cedar, and tamarack. Follow the yellow trail markers. The upland portion of the walk takes you to a giant white pine before turning left to skirt the shore of Barnum Pond. The path then leads to a 1,600-foot boardwalk across a spruce swamp and then through hardwoods.

Birds commonly seen and/or heard along the trail include:

• Common loon (on Barnum Pond)
• Lincoln's sparrow
• Swamp sparrow
• Palm warbler
• Hermit thrush
• Black-throated green warbler
• White-throated Sparrow
• Winter Wren
• Northern Parula
• American Robin
• Cedar Waxwing
• Black-backed Woodpecker
• Tree swallow

Wildflowers commonly seen along the trail include:

• Rose Pogonia
• Helloborine Orchid (Epipactis helleborine) -- Hellobore
• Canada Mayflower (Maianthemum canadense) - often zigzag stem; Lily family; flowers in May-June
• Common Wood Sorrel (Oxalis montana) - three heart-shaped leaflets to each stem; pink striped flowers in spring; sour taste of fruit and leaves due to oxalic acid
• Indian Pipe (Monotropa uniflora)
• Wild Sarsparilla (Aralia nudicaulis) - flowers in spring; few flowers this spring
• Goldthread (coptis trifolia) - Èlooms in early summer; rhizome long, slender creeping; bright golden yellow
• Creeping Snowberry (Gaultheria hispidula) - part of the heath family; blooms in spring; prostrate plant; leaves egg shaped; typically grows in moss mats or on rotting stumps; edible white berries (none visible today) have a winter-green flavor
• Dewdrops (Dalibarda repens) - False Violet; flowering; creeping plant; heart-shaped leaves with margin scalloped.
• Rattlesnake Plantain (Goodyera tesselata) - Orchid family; bluish green leaves with silvery white lines. Flowers third week of July to the first week of September.
• Labrador Tea (Rhododendron groenlandicum) - underside of leaf downy and white (young leaves) to rusty (mature leaves); flowers in June; boardwalk area
• White Fringed Orchid (Platanthera blephariglottis) - boardwalk area
• Bog Rosemary (Andromeda glaucophylla) - boardwalk area; in-rolled leaf margin; white undersurface
• Marsh Cinquefoil (Potentilla palustris) - small blooms; boardwalk area
• Pitcher plant (Sarracenia purpurea) - boardwalk area
• Clintonia (Clintonia borealis) - also called Blue Bead Lily, small yellow flowers
• Wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens) - checkerberry
• Bunchberry (Cornus canadensis)
• Dward Rattlesnake Plantain (Goodyera repens) - Orchid family
• White Fringed Orchid (Platanthera blephariglottis)
• Cotton Grass - blooms in June, boardwalk area
• Marsh Cinquefoil (Potentilla palustris) - small blooms; boardwalk area
• Shinleaf (Pyrola elliptica)