Quincy Bluff And Wetlands

State Natural Area (No. 272)

Location: Adams County. T16N-R5E, Sections 1-4, 10-15, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27. T16N-R6E, Sections 7, 18. T17N-R5E, Sections 25, 26, 27, 34, 35, 36. 5,102 acres.

Access: From the intersection of Highways 13 and H just east of White Creek, go west on H 2.6 miles, then north on 16th Avenue 0.4 mile, then west on Evergreen Avenue 0.5 mile, then north on 16th Drive 2.4 miles to a parking area east of the road. Or from Highways 13 and H, go north on 13 5.9 miles, then west on Dyke Drive 1.4 miles, then north on 14th Drive 0.4 mile to a parking area west of the road. Old logging roads loop through the site. State Natural Area and The Nature Conservancy preserve signs mark the parcels.

Description: Quincy Bluff and Wetlands is a large, landscape-scale natural area featuring a mosaic of communities including northern wet and wet-mesic forest, northern and southern sedge meadow, shrub-carr, pine barrens, and sand prairie. This unique area is located in the Central Sand Plain ecoregion of Wisconsin, the bed of extinct Glacial Lake Wisconsin and features a vast wetland complex with low sandy ridges, wetlands, and seepage ponds situated between sandstone mesas and buttes that rise 100-200 feet. Quincy Bluff, which rises 200 feet high and extends for approximately two miles, contains northern dry forest and open cliff communities. Lone Rock, an excellent example of a Driftless Area mesa, features one hundred-foot Cambrian sandstone cliffs. The uplands are forested with jack pine and Hill's oak with a shrub layer dominated by huckleberry, American hazelnut, and early low blueberry. Pennsylvania sedge is the dominant herb with wild lupine and spreading dogbane common constituents of the understory. Grasses and forbs characteristic of barrens and sandy prairies are found here including big blue-stem, June grass, needle grass, poverty grass, goat's-rue, prairie coreopsis, and rough blazing-star. Due to its large size and heterogeneous landscape, Quincy Bluff and Wetlands contains essential habitat for a great diversity of species. Within this vast ecosystem are numerous rare plant and animal species including cross milkwort (Polygala cruciata), Virginia meadow beauty (Rhexia virginica), fragile prickly pear (Opuntia fragilis), ringed boghaunter dragonfly (Williamsonia lintneri), ebony boghaunter dragonfly (Williamsonia fletcheri), warpaint emerald dragonfly (Somatochlora incurvata), a tiger beetle (Cicindela patruela huberi) and the Karner blue butterfly (Lycaeides melissa samuelis). Quincy Bluff is owned by the DNR and The Nature Conservancy and was designated a State Natural Area in 1993.