The Nature Conservancy - Lennox Woods Preserve

Location

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Lennox Woods Preserve is located along State Highway 37 in Red River County, about 10 miles north of Clarksville.

Visitors can hike, bird or take advantage of a self-guided nature trail.

Hours
The preserve is open to the public during during daylight hours for self-guided hiking tours. Guided field trips and volunteer workdays are offered periodically.

Size
375 acres

Conditions
There are no marked tails on the preserve so it is advisable to take water and a compass with you if you plan to travel very far into the forest.

How to Prepare for Your Visit
For more information, contact the Clymer Meadow Preserve, P.O. Box 26, Celeste, TX, 75423, (903) 568-4139.

Directions
From Clarksville:

Drive north on SH 37 about 10.7 miles
Turn west on FM 2118 and drive 1.6 miles
Look for the Mt. Pleasant Missionary Baptist Church sign on the left where you’ll turn onto a gravel road [the sign is easy to miss].
The road surface changes to clay as you travel into the forest. The entrance to the preserve is about a mile from the church, on the left adjacent to a small parking area. [During wet weather this road may be impassible without 4-wheel drive and can be very muddy and slick at times.]

The Lennox Woods Preserve provides habitat for several rare plant and animal species. Two species that are rare in Texas, are also found here.

Arkansas Meadow Rue
The Hooked Buttercup
Wildenovi's Sedge

One of the most beautiful and pristine old-growth forests in the state, Lennox Woods Preserve is a vital refuge for several rare species of plant and animal communities supported by the waters of Pecan Bayou, one of the largest undammed watersheds in northeastern Texas. The old-growth timber and cathedral-like canopy of these woods are thought to be typical of the undisturbed floodplains throughout the state prior to the arrival of settlers.

Most of the woodlands in the area were sold for logging purposes, but these woods have been protected for four generations by the Lennox family, who originally acquired the property in 1863. The first 170 acres were donated in 1987 by the Lennox siblings, Martha, David and Bagby. Another 206 acres were donated by Martha Lennox and the Lennox Foundation in 1990, after her brothers had passed away. The preserve was dedicated in May 1990, in honor of the Lennox family's long history of wise stewardship.

Teams of zoologists and botanists already have conducted intensive, seasonal inventories of the preserve's plant, bird, fish, mammal, reptile and amphibian populations to assess the area’s biological diversity and provide a gauge by which to monitor its ecological health. At present, the preserve’s plant and animal communities appear to face few threats as long as the watershed remains undisturbed and the neighboring woodlands are not logged further.

Lennox Woods is an excellent old-growth woodland, containing one of the few remaining examples of fully mature, virgin timber found in the state, some greater than three feet in circumference. The Texas Forest Service aged one post oak on the preserve at over 300 years old and a loblolly pine at nearly 150 years old.

The upland forest is a mixed evergreen-deciduous forest of the shortleaf pine-oak series dominated by shortleaf pine, white oak, loblolly pine, southern red oak, red maple and various hickories. Common components of the understory and shrub layers are dogwood, American beautyberry, mulberry and farkleberry. The ground layer has clumps of perennial grasses and sedges.

The bottomland hardwood forest is dominated by water oaks, willow oaks, bur oaks, overcup oaks, sweetgum and some hickory species. The understory has small trees such as musclewood, winged elm and bluebeech. Various sedges are abundant throughout the ground. In the occasionally flooded portions of the bottomland hardwood forest is the only extant population of the globally threatened Arkansas meadow rue. The hooked buttercup and Wildenovi's sedge, two species that are rare in Texas, are also found here.

What to See: Animals
The red-tailed hawk, northern bobwhite, great horned owl, belted kingfisher, Carolina chickadee, cedar waxwing, and the red-headed woodpecker are just a few of the birds common to the preserve. Lennox Woods also harbors a diverse fish population including various crappie, sunfish, perch and shiner. Typical northeast Texas mammal, reptile and amphibian populations can also be found here: raccoons, deer, squirrel, armadillo, rabbit, along with various snakes, toads, salamanders and lizards.

Nature picture credits (left to right): TNC.