Bauer-Brockway Barrens State Natural Area

Bauer-Brockway Barrens features scattered jack pine and Hill’s oak within a matrix of sand prairie and shrubs located on the sandy soils of extinct Glacial Lake Wisconsin. American hazelnut and New Jersey tea dominate the shrub layer while sand prairie species dominate the understory with little blue-stem, June grass, western sunflower, bastard-toadflax, cream wild indigo, flowering spurge, yellow flax, pale-spike lobelia, sand primrose, and bird’s-foot violet. Composites are especially diverse with five species of asters, four of goldenrod, and three of blazing-star.

The Area has a diverse butterfly population and one of the most diverse moth fauna of any other barrens in Wisconsin. The federally endangered Karner blue butterfly occurs here along with the state-threatened frosted elfin butterfly and phlox moth. Wild lupine, the larval food of the Karner blue butterfly, has been planted in some of the restored areas to help maintain healthy numbers of this endangered species. Five other rare butterflies occur here – dusty, cobweb, and Leonardus skippers, mottled duskywing, and the Gorgone checkerspot.

Indian Grave Creek runs northwest southeast through the barrens adding to the overall site diversity. The Area is managed as a pine barrens reserve, as an ecological reference area, and to provide opportunities for research and education on the highest quality native pine barrens.

Bauer-Brockway Barrens is owned by the DNR and Jackson County and was designated a State Natural Area in 1997.

Source: WDNR