Lists of Preserve Species
While there are no threatened or endangered species at Blackacre, a few species are rather surprising to find in an urbanized preserve. These include the streamside and cave salamanders and the northern bobwhite, a bird whose numbers are declining in Kentucky. Blackacre also contains a dolomite glade, a type of habitat also on the decline in the state and one that is extremely rare now in Jefferson County. Several species of flowers characteristic of glades that are rarely seen in the Louisville area, including hoary puccoon, grow abundantly in the Blackacre glade.
Hoary puccoon. Photo by Andrea Almeida.
Many different observers have contributed to the compilation of Blackacre species checklists over the past quarter century. As the land has changed and/or been restored from pasture and hay crops to secondary successional forest, meadow, glade, and tall grass prairie, many species have been added and will be added. Others have disappeared. For example, wild turkeys arrived less than a decade ago as the birds' population recovered in Kentucky. In late summer of 2011, beavers found their way to Jackson's Pond and built a lodge. It is not known why the striped skunk, a long preserve resident, was not seen from 2008 to summer 2011, but returned in fall of 2011.
These lists are works-in-progress. More needs to be known about small mammal, lizard, and insect populations, as well that of non-vascular plants, ferns, forbs and grasses. Checklists will be revised and new ones added, as research dictates. For a more detailed listing and discussion of herbaceous plants by habitat, please see The Herbaceous Vascular Plants of Blackacre State Nature Preserve: A Preliminary List.
For convenience of use, wildflower lists are divided into blooming seasons.
