Wild Flora of the Green-Wood Cemetery
The Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn encompasses almost 500 acres of terminal moraine and outwash plain. Surrounded by neighborhoods jam packed with the living, this expansive and tree-filled memorial to the dead remains home to vibrant communities of plants, animals, fungi, and lichens, some of them persisting in possible relict populations from before the cemetery’s founding in 1838 and others brought in either intentionally or inadvertently by humans. Though nearly every square meter of the site has been dug up and disturbed at some point, staff and visiting botanists continue to find locally-rare plants that may not have arrived by human transport. The Green-Wood and other city cemeteries offer us an opportunity to preserve large patches of biodiversity right in the heart of our urban areas.
Directions: We will meet at 10 am at the main entrance of the Green-Wood Cemetery where 25th Street dead-ends at 5th Avenue. The tour will begin just inside the gothic gatehouse entrance, next to the bathrooms and a water-bottle filling station. Please come prepared with good walking shoes, water and snacks.
Trip Leaders: Molly Nash Rouzie ([email protected]) is an NYC-based naturalist who has spent countless hours botanizing at the cemetery, and Sara Evans is the cemetery’s Manager of Horticulture Operations.
Time: 10:00 AM EDT
Free!
