Little Miami then and now: 2011

Since it is close to my home, I've spent a few days walking the Finley Preserve learning the plants that inhabit this spectacular woodland. Although I in no way claim to be any sort of botanist I do think I have built up a decent profile of the plants on this ridge above the Little Miami.

As you first enter the preserve there is a brushy transition zone between the soybean field and the woods. Almost all the common field edge plants you might find in Southern Ohio are here including teasel, black-eyed susan, goldenrods, ironweed,
milkweed, plantain, timothy, several asters, oxeye daisy, dock, burdock, chicory, dandelion, trumpet vine, smartweed, queen anne's lace, and orchard grass. In the woodline there are a couple small cedar trees which I've seen no where else on the preserve in addition to some mulberry, locust, and walnut. The main understory tree/shrub here is the amur honeysuckle though it hasn't completely crowded out eveything else like elsewhere along the river.

Once you enter the woods the land drops off steeply into a deep hollow which you must cross to reach the ridgeline that overlooks the river. This ravine is covered in a spectacular mature woods. Large beech, maple and oaks predominate. The plantlife is varied and all the woodland plants you might expect are there and then some. A few of the more interesting plants include goldenseal, twinleaf, bloodroot, mayapple, twisted stalk, hepatica, false solomenseal, wild leek, rue anemone, various fern species, varigated waterleaf, trillium, blue cohosh, and wild ginger. In places the wild ginger forms a carpet on the forrest floor and is the most common herb on the preserve. There seems to be at least fifty ginseng plants in this hollow with most of those being less than ten years old. The young age of these makes me think this is a newer population recovering from harvesting in the past. I'd consider planting some seed to help speed the process. Baneberry is also present here in about the same numbers as the ginseng. Baneberry or dolleyes contains a powerful compound which could slow a persons heart or even stop it if say a small child were to ingest the pretty white berries.

The small creek which flows thru the bottom of the hollow has a couple sycamores along it but no giants as you might find further downstream in the river bottom.
Just downhill of the preserve an entire bank of the creek is covered in waist high ferns. Thru the preserve pawpaw is the dominate understory plant creekside with a few patches of nettle where more sunlight penetrates. Once leaving the preserve the creek makes a beeline downhill crossing the remains of the old Waynesville road before hitting the river just above fishpot ford.

Climbing out of the hollow to the ridge line large mature trees cloak the ridge. At one time it looks like this might have been a pasture as the remains of an old barbed wire fence can be found. From the size of some of trees it must have been open woods though instead of field. Nowadays the woods has completely swallowed every trace of this except for the barbed wire. Even this is very old and looks nothing like modern barbed wire. This wire is called "Allis' Mediuim Width Buckthorn Ribbon" by collectors and has a patent date of 1881. Close to the old fenceline I found an old medicine bottle which by the mold lines pressed into the glass also seems to date from the 1880's. As most of the "medicines" contained alot of alchohol I can imagine it being tossed into the bushes by whoever had to string the barbed wire. The ridge itself is very flat on top then drops off steeply towards the river.

The tip of the ridge closest to Red Oak Road roughly overlooks the upper end of fishpot ford. Fishpot got it's name from John Sublette, one of the first settlers in the area, who built a large stone trap just above the riffle here to catch fish. Sublette was famous as a hunter and trapper in a time famous for hunters and trappers and hunted bear and mountain lion on these ridges overlooking the river. The Shawnee also trapped the river for the booming fur trade and by Sublette's time
(1780's-90's) beaver were already becoming scarce and he caught one of the last in the river along here. Fishpot itself is a large S curve in the river containing two small islands and extensive shallows making the river easy to cross. The ford was used by Gen. George Rogers Clark and Gen. Josiah Harmar as a crossing on their campaigns against the Indians and was the site of some minor fighting as the Indians harrased the army.

The hillside from the old Waynesville Road up to the ridgeline is a mirrow image of the hollow you first cross when entering the preserve except in places there seems to be a bit more honeysuckle. Both the hillsides and the ridgeline have numerous large downed trees that serve as nursery logs for plants and a wide varity of mushrooms.
I'm sure I've missed a few tree species as some trees are just too large and the leaves so high that its hard to see them well but here is at least a partial listing:

sugar maple
beech
tulip poplar
basswood
ash
red maple
hophornbeam
black cherry
shagbark hickory
shellbark hickory
white oak
red oak
bitternut hickory
pawpaw
viburnum
redbud
dogwood
chestnut oak
cedar
mulberry
sycamore
walnut
locust
amur honeysuckle
In the springtime I'm sure a list of wildflowers would be much larger as some kinds die back in summer and some are very inconspicuous when not in bloom. I've list some under general heading such as just "goldenrods" or "trilliums" as it is hard for me to ID them when they are not in bloom. A very incomplete listing of small plants and herbs includes:
wild ginger
jack in the pulpit
ginseng
bullbrier
sticktight
jewelweed
goldenseal
toothwort
false solomenseal
trilliums
hepatica
mayapple
jewelweed
smartweed
rue anemone
twisted stalk
twinleaf
ramp
queen anne's lace
white clover
red clover
dutchman's breeches
spring beauty
wild geranium
ground ivy
trumpet vine
virginia creeper
sweet cicely
rattlesnake fern
marginal fern
christmas fern
maidenhair fern
multiflora rose
pokeweed
banneberry
varigated waterleaf
poison ivy
wild grape
brome
burdock
chickory
oxeye daisy
dandelion
dock
wild garlic
goldenrods
ironweed
milkweed
stinging nettle
orchard grass
plantain
teasel
timothy
white vervain
blue cohosh
squawroot
violets
bellflower
bergamont
fleabane
asters
wood sorrel

If you fish much on Todds Fork you are bound to run unto the remains of one of the old railroad bridges spanning the river. Some you can see easily from the road but others like the two that carried the railroad across the great horseshoe downstream of Middleboro Road towards Roachester Oseola can only been seen by those willing to get off the beaten path.

The Cincinnati & Muskingum Valley Railroad ran from Morrow thru Wilmington, Washington Court House, Circleville, Zanesville and Trinway. The C&MV was incorporated in 1851, and was completed from Morrow to Zanesville by 1856. bankrupt only seven years later, the line reorganized into the Cincinnati & Zanesville. In 1870, the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) took control over the C&MV, and extended the railroad to Trinway. In 1911, the C&MV consolidated into the Cleveland, Akron & Cincinnati Railroad (CA&C). In 1924, the Zanesville Division was absorbed by the PRR Cincinnati Division, which consolidated into the Pittsburgh, Ohio & Detroit Railroad one year later By 1968, the line had become the Morrow Branch, Zanesville Branch, and Twinway Branch of the Pennsylvania Central Columbus Division.
The line west of Wilmington was dismantled in 1976 when the southern end, the Little Miami railroad, part of the Pennsylvania's Cincinnati & Xenia Branch, Cincinnati Division, was abandoned. Unlike the Little Miami which was turned into a bike trail,
this road was simply abandoned and everything from old spikes and ties to these gorgeous old bridges abound. From what I can tell, and please correct me if I'm wrong, there were six of these big main bridges on the Fork,