Home > Recreation > Nature CentersNature Centers in the Finger LakesLime Hollow3091 Gracie Rd. Cortland, NY 13045 607-758-5462
Looking for a place to go cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, hiking, birding, or wildflower watching? Lime Hollow Center for Environment & Culture in western Cortland County offers all that and much more. Located just outside the City of Cortland, the center offers a wide variety of outdoor activities and four miles of marked, maintained trails running through 375 geologically unique acres. UNIQUE GEOLOGYLike the rest of the Finger Lakes Region, Lime Hollow was carved by the movement of glaciers. Called kame-and-kettle topography, the land has rounding hills of stratified sand and gravel called kames, dipping into depressions of glacial drift called kettles. Small, round, shallow ponds of marl, a soft, crumbly deposit of clay, sand, and limestone are filled with turquoise water. Streams and beaver ponds can also be found on the property. CHICAGO BOGPeat bogs were formed eons ago when great quantities of vegetation died and were compressed in watery depressions. Chicago Bog on the Phillips Memorial Trail is one of the few intact bogs in the Finger Lakes Region. An enormous Labrador tea (Ledum groenlandicum), an acid-loving plant related to rhododendrons, grows in the bog.
The combination of limey marl ponds along with the acidic peat bog makes for a uniquely diverse environment. PLANT LIFEThe Lime Hollow area is rich in native plants, especially in the spring. Lime-loving plants grow in abundance along the extension of the old Lehigh Valley railroad right-of-way that runs between Gracie and Lime Hollow roads. Acid-loving plants can be found around Chicago Bog. INTERPRETIVE CENTER AND CLASSESLime Hollow maintains an interpretive center with nature displays where it holds a variety of programs on such topics as birds of prey, night creatures, snakes, edible plants, and wreath making. INFORMATIONA great color-coded map of the trails and other information are available at the Center's Web site.
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