Mason Farm Biological Reserve
A special 367-acre tract of the Garden, Mason Farm Biological
Reserve
contains diverse natural plant communities and protected habitats
especially
valuable for scientific research and teaching. It lies adjacent to the
southeast portion of the Garden's Hunt Arboretum. A pond, research
support
areas (nursery space, field plots, plant propagation beds, animal behavior
research station, and greenhouses), and a small teaching observatory of
the
Department of Physics are located there.
Programs at the Reserve are:
natural area protection
a diverse collection of botanical, zoological,
and ecological studies
research support
scheduled seasonal interpretive programs
History of the Mason Farm Biological Reserve
The Mason Farm Area was willed to the University in 1894 by Mary Mason,
one of the last descendants of the Morgan family, who had settled in this
southeast corner of Orange County in the 1740's. Since 1894, the area
has remained largely undisturbed. The area has now largely reverted
back to woodlands and some of the forests are now at least 150 years
old.
Somewhat less "natural"but preserving a fast-disappearing element of the
rural Piedmont, several of the historic fields of the Mason Plantation
are still kept under cultivation through leases with local farmers;
plantin is rotated,however, allowing some fields to lie fallow and begin
to enter secondary succession..
Since the 1960's, several portions of this tract were set
aside specifically for biological uses by the UNC Board of Trustees, and
the Mason Farm Biological Reserve was officially established in
1984. Today the area is administered by the North Caorlina
Botanical Garden as both a natural area and biological field
station.
Access to the Reserve is available by special permit to researchers,
university classes, natural history groups, and the public. Annual
permits and maps of the Reserve's farm roads and trails are available at
the Totten Center at the Botanical Gardens during weekday hours,
8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
Return to the Other Sites Page
Return to the Main page