As you walk along the MRG, what do you notice? Learning the names of the life around us transforms the outdoors from a pastoral backdrop into a world of fascinating diversity, a parallel world of beings and relationships.
Mascoma River Greenway Plant Checklist
How many of these plants can you find along the MRG?
Trees
- Red Oak
- Maples – we have a few! Norway, Sugar, Red, Striped, & Box Elder
- Beech
- Elm
- Basswood
- Birch – we have a few!
- Cottonwood
- Aspen
- Black walnut
- Green ash
- White ash
- White pine
- Hemlock
- Willow
- Sumac
- Apple
- Black cherry
- Black locust
- American hornbeam
Shrubs & woody vines
- Witch hazel
- Dogwoods – more than one species out there!
- Elderberry
- Grape
- Flowering raspberry
- Meadowsweet
- Sweet-fern
- Red baneberry
- Blue cohosh
- Blueberries
- Virginia creeper
- Poison ivy
Herbaceous plants
- Goldenrod
- Jewelweed
- Clover
- Milkweed
- Bee balm
- Fleabane
- Hemp dogbane
- Yarrow
- St. Johnswort
- Common Mullein
- Evening primrose
- Queen Anne’s lace
- Windflower
- Day lilies
- Meadow rue
- Climbing nightshade
- Common heal-alls!
Native plants are hosts to native species of caterpillars, which in turn feed the birds many of us love so much. The National Wildlife Federation has put together a tool that shows you the wildlife value of many of the plant species growing along the MRG. Check it out! https://www.nwf.org/NativePlantFinder/
If you have a camera phone, try using iNaturalist or another app to help identify the plants you do not already know. Want a challenge? Find the pollinators!
Thanks to Sarah RIley for creating this list of some of the plant life of the greenway . . . and then there is fungi, moss, lichen . . . etc!
The Mascoma River Greenway 