Mossy Glen State Preserve

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State Preserves

Mossy Glen is an 80-acre preserve featuring a rugged forested area along the Silurian Escarpment. It is located 6 miles northwest of Edgewood and 6.5 miles northeast of Strawberry Point in Clayton County. 

The area was donated to the Iowa Conservation Commission in 1978 by Mildred Hatch in memory of her father, Charles A. Hesner, and her uncle, Henry Hesner. The area was dedicated in 1979 as a biological and geological state preserve.

In the early 1900s, Mossy Glen was a popular picnic spot. The road on the west edge of the preserve once extended over a bridge across Mossy Glen Creek, but was abandoned in 1978 after the bridge washed out. 

Occasional logging, especially of walnut trees on the valley floor, was conducted prior to state ownership.

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About the Land

The preserve is representative of a prominent line of bluffs across northeastern Iowa known as the Silurian Escarpment. 

This escarpment consists of massive outcrops of 430-millon-year-old dolomite (magnesiumrich limestone) formed in a shallow sea during what geologists term the Silurian period. The Silurian Escarpment forms the southwestern boundary of the Paleozoic Plateau landform region, a broad area of rugged topography in northeast Iowa.

Characteristic of the rugged landscape found along the Silurian Escarpment:

  • Extensive rock outcrops
  • Slumped dolomite blocks
  • Steeply dissected ravines
  • “Karst” terrain (including sinkholes, springs, and caves)

Mossy Glen contains several of these distinctive features.

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Directions

  1. From Edgewood, take Highway 3 west 1.5 miles to Eagle Avenue. 
  2. Turn north (right) and go 4.1 miles to the end of the Grade A road.
  3. Park on the edge of the road  in a small parking lot opposite a farmstead.
  4. Walk half-mile northeast along a Grade B road through a farm field to the west edge of the preserve.
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Plants

The mature forest in the preserve is dominated by red oak and sugar maple. Ironwood is a common understory species in addition:

  • Witch hazel
  • Leatherwood
  • Alternate-leaved dogwood
  • Bladdernut
  • Canada yew

Over 300 native vascular plants have been found here. Bloodroot, spring beauty, squirrel corn, and white trout-lily begin blooming in April, followed by:

  • Wild ginger
  • False rue anemone
  • Dutchman’s breeches
  • Bishop’s cap
  • Blue cohosh
  • Toothwort
  • Wild geranium
  • Jack-in-the-pulpit
  • Nodding trillium
  • Bellwort
  • Showy orchis 

Many ferns also grace the preserve, including:

  • Ostrich fern
  • Goldie’s fern
  • Smooth cliff-brake
  • Northern lady fern
  • Narrow-leaved spleenwort
  • Creeping fragile fern
  • Spinulose wood fern
  • Sensitive fern 
  • Christmas fern
  • Blunt-lobed woodsia
  • Rattlesnake fern
  • Interrupted fern

Wood nettle covers the bottomland floor in the summer and can make travel uncomfortable.

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Birds & Species

About sixty birds have been observed here. Many are neotropical migrants, including:

  • Cuckoos
  • Flycatchers
  • Warblers
  • Vireos 
  • Veery
  • Scarlet tanager
  • Woodthrush
  • Redstart
  • Louisiana waterthrush
  • Ovenbird

Several of these birds need large tracts of unbroken forest for successful breeding.

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Visitor Information

Hunting is permitted.

Other natural areas along the Silurian Escarpment are Brush Creek Canyon, Bixby, and White Pine Hollow State Preserves, Volga River Recreation Area, and Echo Valley State Park.

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