Peninsula's Key Ecosystems

Two features dominate the Peninsula landscape: rock and water. Dolostone bluffs surge 150 feet upwards, offering spectacular views. Eight miles of shoreline cradle the rocky promontories.

Bluff

Peninsula's shady cliffs harbor microhabitats alive with rare crustaceans, snails, and delicate ferns and flowers. The limestone cliffs form a rock ridge called the Niagara Escarpment. This ridge of bedrock stretches across the state of Wisconsin, forming the Door Peninsula, the cliffs at High Cliff State Park, areas of the Bruce Peninsula in Upper Michigan, and eventually ending up under Niagara Falls. The bluffs formed about 430 million years ago as mud on the bottom of a saltwater sea. Walk carefully! This habitat includes globally rare snail species. Access: Eagle Trail and Lone Pine Trail.

The bluffs harbor ancient cedar trees and cool springs.
DNR Photo

Coastal Wetlands

The Great Lakes alkaline rock shore develops on creviced, wave-splashed, horizontal exposures of dolomite bedrock. Weborg Marsh, near Park Headquarters, is an open wetland dominated by tussock sedges and Canada bluejoint grass. Access: Weborg Point, park at Weborg day use lot.

Forest

The forest at Peninsula is almost all second growth, with maple and beech trees dominating. This type of northern mesic forest once covered 1/3 of Wisconsin. Peninsula's two state natural areas, the White Cedar Forest and Beech Maple Forest, were so designated in 1952 as good representations of forest types. Even more incredible is Peninsula's "vertical forest"—northern white cedar trees that hug the bluffs of the Niagara Escarpment. Some of these trees are more than 500 years old. Access: Sentinel Trail, Hemlock Trail.

Fringed polygala blooms in hemlock-cedar woods in late May.
DNR Photo

Meadow

Peninsula's 3,776 acres includes several family farms, all abandoned more than 50 years ago. They are meadows today. July and August are colorful times. Native milkweed and black-eyed Susan compete with plants imported from Europe, like spotted knapweed. Access: Sentinel Trail, Nature Center Meadow.

For more information, ask Kathleen Harris, (920) 854-5976.