Clymer Meadows – Wylie
NPAT is privileged to hold two conservation easements within the 1100-acre Clymer Meadows Preserve: the Webster Tract and the Wylie Tract.
Location: Hunt County
Region: Blackland Prairie Ecoregion; S. segment of Cross Timbers & S. Tallgrass Prairie Ecoregions.
Size: 96.79 acres
Ownership: Owned by The Nature Conservancy. Conservation easement held by NPAT.
NPAT is privileged to hold two conservation easements within the 1100-acre Clymer Meadows Preserve: the Webster Tract and the Wylie Tract.
Both are part of a larger conservation area located north of Greenville, TX owned by The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and other private owners. The Clymer Meadows Preserve contains some of the largest and most diverse Blackland Prairie remnants in the state. It is one of the largest and most diverse remnants of original Texas Blackland Prairie, one of the most critically endangered landscapes in Texas and the U.S. The entire Clymer Meadows Preserve is a valuable resource for scientific research and supervised field trips, tours, hiking and bird watching, all managed and approved so as not to impair its pristine condition.
Both NPAT easement properties have been restored by The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and protect a portion of Arnold Creek watershed contributing to water quality of the East Fork of the Trinity River and the Upper Trinity River Basin. The property supports water absorption as it increases filtration in the water supplies of Dallas, Houston and communities in-between.
Site Description
The 96.79 acres known as the Wylie Tract sustains valued prairie lands, native plants & animals. Its primary conservation value is its potential to protect natural prairie and restored tallgrass prairie habitat for wildlife populations.
The topography is gentle sloping, the dominant prairie grasses in its center are little bluestem and eastern gamagrass; native Texas wintergrass and wildryes appear during the cool season. (70 plant species have been identified on this property including forbs, grasses and woody species.)
Supporting the plight of the Monarch butterfly is milkweed, which is abundant during the fall. Other colorful plant varieties are the clasping leaf coneflower, rough leaf rosinweed, Indian plantain, yellow wild indigo, purple coneflower, and Maximilian sunflower. The property also supports native woody vegetation: cedar elm, hackberry, Osage orange, rough leaf dogwood and eastern red cedar with the understory consisting of a mix of wild rose, gum bumelia, beautyberry, coralberry, Carolina snailseed vine and greenbriar.
The Wylie Tract is also home to Neotropical songbirds, mammals, and other pollinators, native bumble bees. Grassland birds that have suffered decline have been observed here in this restored habitat: dickcissel, grasshopper sparrow, loggerhead shrike, Eastern meadowlark. (Dickcissel is a ‘Species of Concern’, and the Audubon Society ranked the Eastern meadowlark #6 on its Top 10 List of most declining population of bird species.)
