Sycamore celebrates 30 years of Beanblossom Bottoms Nature Preserve with trailhead enhancements funded by Duke Energy Foundation

Sycamore Land Trust is celebrating the 30th anniversary of Beanblossom Bottoms Nature Preserve in Monroe County with a new educational kiosk funded by the Duke Energy Foundation. This funding also enabled Sycamore to expand and enhance the parking lot, add benches at the trailhead, and improve the preserve’s hiking trail.

On June 6, a dedication ceremony was held to celebrate the new enhancements funded by Duke Energy Foundation.

Beanblossom Bottoms Nature Preserve, located along Beanblossom Creek in Monroe County, is an exceptional 824-acre wetland and bottomland forest and a particular focus of Sycamore’s land conservation and stewardship work. It is one of Sycamore’s 13 free public nature preserves in southern Indiana, recognized by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources as a state-dedicated Nature Preserve protecting one of Indiana’s significant natural areas. It is designated as a Wetland of Distinction by the Society of Wetland Scientists, the first wetland in Indiana to receive this special distinction as one of the world’s most valuable wetland ecosystems. It is also part of a state-designated Important Bird Area, recognized by the National Audubon Society for providing vital nesting and foraging grounds.

This preserve provides critical habitat for more than 20 endangered species and species of special concern, including the Indiana bat, cypress firefly, American bittern, Virginia rail, Henslow’s sparrow, Kirtland’s snake, and many other wetland-dependent species that are threatened due to habitat loss.

It is also a popular nature preserve with hikers, birders, wildlife enthusiasts, and nature lovers of all ages and backgrounds. With a 2-mile elevated boardwalk trail, one of the longest in the Midwest, Beanblossom Bottoms Nature Preserve gives visitors a unique opportunity to explore the heart of a thriving wetland habitat that would otherwise be inaccessible. The boardwalk is accessed by a 0.3-mile gravel path that may be impacted year-round by shallow flooding due to beneficial beaver activity, which is changing how water moves through this wetland. Enhancements to this trail, funded by Duke Energy Foundation, now make it easier for visitors to access and enjoy this wetland habtiat.

“Sycamore Land Trust has made significant investments to improve Beanblossom Bottoms Nature Preserve,” said Liz Irwin, Government and Community Relations Manager at Duke Energy. “We’re proud to continue supporting their efforts to enhance the area, expand accessibility, and introduce educational elements to this vital wetland habitat.”

“We are grateful for Duke Energy’s generous support for improvements that will add to our visitors’ experience at the preserve,” said Jenny Stephens, Board Chair of Sycamore Land Trust. “It’s a challenge just to maintain this amazing and dynamic property. Duke’s funding also helps us replace worn and damaged boards, trim the plants that encroach on the boardwalk, clear trees and debris after storms, and respond as best we can to the ever-changing hydrology in the public’s only window into the vast Beanblossom Creek Conservation Area.”

Sycamore Land Trust purchased the first wetland parcel in what would become Beanblossom Bottoms Nature Preserve in 1995 after Barbara Restle donated the neighboring 42-acre Restle Natural Area to Sycamore Land Trust in 1993, one of our earliest land protection projects and our first property along Beanblossom Creek, a major tributary of the West Fork White River. Over the past three decades, Sycamore has expanded the preserve through strategic land purchases and generous donations to over 824 acres, connecting it to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Restle Unit of the Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge and a privately owned wetland protected by a Wetland Reserve Program easement. All together, more than 900 acres of contiguous habitat is protected.

Beanblossom Bottoms Nature Preserve was the first nature preserve in what would become Sycamore’s Beanblossom Creek Conservation Area, a priority project area established in 2019 to create a connected corridor of protected habitat in the Beanblossom Creek watershed in Monroe and Brown Counties, where Sycamore protects and restores wetlands and other important habitats and creates connectivity between protected natural areas. Since 2019, Sycamore has expanded this vital habitat corridor to over 2,200 acres.

Once part of an extensive wetland ecosystem along the floodplain of Beanblossom Creek, the area that would become Beanblossom Bottoms Nature Preserve was drained and deforested in the early 1900s for agriculture. As farming in this area proved unsustainable due to frequent flooding, much of this area was abandoned, allowing nature to begin reclaiming the space. Sycamore Land Trust began protecting and restoring this habitat in 1995, supporting its natural regeneration.

Today, Beanblossom Bottoms is once again a thriving wetland, offering sanctuary to rare species, improving water quality, and serving as a powerful example of ecological restoration in action. The preserve protects a variety of wetland habitats that are declining across Indiana, including successional bottomland forest, sedge meadows, emergent marsh, and an oxbow swamp that is a remnant of a bend in Beanblossom Creek that ran through its woods centuries ago. This habitat diversity supports a wide range of species and gives threatened species a place to recover and thrive. Some of the rare and threatened species protected on the preserve include:

• Indiana Bat Myotis sodalis The standing dead trees in the swamp, called snags, provide important habitat for many species that nest in their hollow cavities or roost under loose tree bark. The endangered Indiana bat uses Beanblossom Bottoms for summer roosting habitat. Females form maternity colonies under loose tree bark to raise their young, before traveling to caves and mines to hibernate in the winter. The Indiana bat and its cousins the northern long-eared bat (Myotis septentrionalis) and tricolored bat (Perimyotis subflavus) are severely threatened due to habitat loss, human disturbance during hibernation, and white-nose syndrome.
• Cypress Firefly Photuris walldoxeyi This very rare and threatened firefly was discovered at Beanblossom Bottoms in 2019 by Lynn Frierson Faust and Max Henschen, the most northern observation in its known range. It was previously thought to live only in cypress swamps located farther south, but cypress trees do not naturally occur in this region. Finding cypress fireflies here has helped expand scientists’ understanding of the habitat needed to support this threatened species, especially as its range shifts due to a changing climate. Its unique courtship flash pattern consists of four to nine bright pulsing flashes, followed by a prolonged one-second glow, often forming a faint “J” shape as the firefly moves slightly downward.
• Kirtland’s Snake Clonophis kirtlandii The state-endangered Kirtland’s snake was first documented at Beanblossom Bottoms in the early 2000s. The species is under review for potential federal endangered status and what we are learning from monitoring them at Beanblossom Bottoms and other preserves in our Beanblossom Creek Conservation Area may help inform future protections for the species. We are conducting research on their survival and habitat use in partnership with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources to better understand and protect these secretive, burrow-dwelling snakes, using techniques like PIT tags and high frequency radio transmitters.
• Purple Fringeless Orchid Platanthera peramoena At least four rare species of native orchids have been found at Beanblossom Bottoms Nature Preserve. The showy purple fringeless orchid usually blooms in August and September along the boardwalk trail. The northern tubercled bog orchid (Platanthera flava var. herbiola), also known as the Pale-Green Orchid, has small, inconspicuous, yellowish-green flowers that bloom summer to fall. White nodding ladies’-tresses (Spiranthes cernua) have been found in drier areas in the preserve’s uplands. The club spur bog orchid (Platanthera clavellata) has also been seen on the preserve. Visitors should stay on the trail to protect this sensitive natural area.

“The biodiversity we observe in the Preserve is proof that Sycamore’s strategic investment in the larger Conservation Area is making a real difference. It’s a magical place that inspires a sense of childlike wonder in visitors of all ages,” said Sycamore’s Board Chair Jenny Stephens.