Battle Creek Cypress Swamp (BCCS) is a forested wetland near Prince Frederick in

Calvert County Calvert County is located in the U.S. state of Maryland. As of the 2020 census, the population was 92,783. Its county seat is Prince Frederick. The county's name is derived from the family name of the Barons of Baltimore, the proprietors of ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean t ...

, United States. It is one of the northernmost sites of naturally occurring bald cypress (''

Taxodium distichum ''Taxodium distichum'' (bald cypress, swamp cypress; french: cyprès chauve; ''cipre'' in Louisiana) is a deciduous conifer in the family Cupressaceae. It is native to the southeastern United States. Hardy and tough, this tree adapts to a wide r ...

'') trees in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

, and the only large stand of the trees on the western shore of

. In 1965, the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational properti ...

designated the BCCS a

National Natural Landmark The National Natural Landmarks (NNL) Program recognizes and encourages the conservation of outstanding examples of the natural history of the United States. It is the only national natural areas program that identifies and recognizes the best ...

The BCCS Sanctuary

The Nature Conservancy The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is a global environmental organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. it works via affiliates or branches in 79 countries and territories, as well as across every state in the US. Founded in 1951, The Nat ...

purchased the wetland, which became the Battle Creek Cypress Swamp Sanctuary, in 1957. It was the Conservancy's first preserve in Maryland and encompasses (about 1% of the watershed of Battle Creek). A portion of it is now open as a public park with a nature center and quarter-mile

boardwalk A boardwalk (alternatively board walk, boarded path, or promenade) is an elevated footpath, walkway, or causeway built with wooden planks that enables pedestrians to cross wet, fragile, or marshy land. They are also in effect a low type of br ...

through the swamp. Since 1977, the preserve has been leased to Calvert County and operated as a county park.

Natural history

Cypress Cypress is a common name for various coniferous trees or shrubs of northern temperate regions that belong to the family Cupressaceae. The word ''cypress'' is derived from Old French ''cipres'', which was imported from Latin ''cypressus'', the l ...

es, such as the bald cypress, and their relatives once covered much of the northern temperate zone. It is thought that these trees disappeared from the BCCS area during the most recent

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

glaciation A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate bet ...

("Ice Age"), but reappeared around 5,000 to 10,000 years ago as the climate warmed. In addition to the cypress, the sanctuary protects many

songbird A songbird is a bird belonging to the suborder Passeri of the perching birds (Passeriformes). Another name that is sometimes seen as the scientific or vernacular name is Oscines, from Latin ''oscen'', "songbird". The Passeriformes contains 5000 ...

s ( prothonotary warbler,

waterthrush The waterthrushes are a genus of New World warbler, ''Parkesia''. The genus was split from ''Seiurus'', which previously contained both waterthrush species and the ovenbird. When the genera split, the ovenbird was the only member left in ''Seiuru ...

frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely Carnivore, carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order (biology), order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-f ...

s ( green frog, spring peeper) and several wildflower species (

cardinal flower ''Lobelia cardinalis'', the cardinal flower (syn. ''L. fulgens''), is a species of flowering plant in the bellflower family Campanulaceae native to the Americas, from southeastern Canada south through the eastern and southwestern United Sta ...

, jack-in-the-pulpit).

Skunk cabbage Skunk cabbage is a common name for several plants and may refer to: * the genus '' Lysichiton'' ** Asian skunk cabbage, ''Lysichiton camtschatcensis'', grows in eastern Asia ** Western skunk cabbage, ''Lysichiton americanus'', grows in western Nor ...

s emerge early each spring.

References

External links

Nature Conservancy's Battle Creek Cypress Swamp Sanctuary siteBattle Creek Cypress Swamp
- Battle Creek Nature Education Society
BCCS National Natural Landmark webpage
{{authority control Protected areas of Calvert County, Maryland Nature reserves in Maryland Swamps of Maryland National Natural Landmarks in Maryland Nature centers in Maryland Landforms of Calvert County, Maryland