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Flora and fauna in Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore


Flora and fauna in Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore

Many ecosystem types can be readily recognized by amateurs. Ecosystem types, and characteristic grasses and flowering plants, that exist within the Indiana Dunes include the following:
  • Sand dunes - marram grass, prickly pear, puccoon
  • Wetlands (bogs, marshlands, and swamps) - marsh marigold, skunk cabbage
  • Ponds - bladderwort, gentian
  • Prairies - black-eyed susan, butterfly weed, goldenrod, lupine, prairie grass
  • Savannas - asters, prairie grass
  • Dry woods - columbines, hepatica, Solomon's seal
  • Wet woods - Dutchmen's breeches, hepatica, trillium, violet
  • The most common large tree in the Indiana Dunes is the black oak. There are also plenty of cottonwoods. Jack pines often grow in burned-over or disturbed areas, and there are several groves of sugar maples (the Bailly/Chellberg farm operates an maple-syrup boil in early spring). A grove of paper birches on the Cowles Bog Trail is said to be the farthest-south naturally reproducing population of this species in the Great Lakes area. As of January 2006, whitetail deer lived in quantity in the Indiana Dunes. The common North American wetland and woodland rodents, such as beavers, muskrats, and squirrels, can be easily seen.

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    Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.

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