Dumaw Nature Preserve

I never did tell you the other place that Ellen and I went on November 7. This is a fairly new Nature Preserve just east of Pentwater. It was created in 2023.

There is about one mile of trail in the form of two loops connected in the middle by this bridge over Dumaw Creek which flows to the North Branch of the Pentwater River. The loops sort of look like butterfly wings with the creek as the body. At the very south end of the preserve, there is a curve of the river that passes through it, but this is not seen from the trails.

The north loop is about 0.4 mile and it stays down in the low area beside the creek.

This cedar trunk pleased me artistically.

Once you cross the bridge, the southern loop climbs and you are up on a bluff. This is the longer loop and about 0.6 mile.

Different vegetation there, of course. We enjoyed this Diphasiastrum digitatum which has so many common names it's ridiculous. Fan clubmoss, ground cedar, northern ground cedar, running cedar... All these plants used to be in one genus, Lycopodium, but some have been changed to Diphasiastrum. Generally, they are all club mosses. The ones that have been moved to this new genus have a different number of chromosomes.

I did learn a fun fact while I was checking what this is currently called. See the little tubes on stalks? These are strobili, which are the spore cases. That I knew. But the spores were traditionally collected and dried to make theatrical flash powder!

I'll feature this area on the Get Off The Couch blog soon, and get it added to the GOTC website. For now, just enjoy pretty pix. If you want to go there, take Hogan Rd east off 66h Avenue out of Pentwater (Park St past the school becomes 66th). There is a sign to the preserve about a half mile after you get on Hogan.

It was a semi-productive day. I worked on projects, but probably not enough. I went shopping- big mistake going on Friday. 4 of the 5 bottle return stations at Meijer were out of order for a while, and the place was packed. Anyway... it was a longer than usual shopping trip.

It was beautiful outside. Would have been a great day for a hike. But I did not do that, I'm sorry to tell you.

See An Excellent Day with the Original Adventure Buddy