"A Little Gem"

In the Felicianas, a hidden nature preserve is home to rare species

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Over twenty years ago, I first laid eyes on St. Francisville when our college recreation group traveled through the area to reach the waterfalls at the Clark Creek Natural Area. Since then, my family and I have explored nearly every inch of the picturesque town, from its historic homes and much-missed button shop, to the record-setting bald cypress trees that stand sentinel in Cat Island National Wildlife Refuge. So, when my youngest boy’s Cub Scout troop announced the next campout would take place at Mary Ann Brown Preserve in St. Francisville, I was floored. Was it possible there was a place in St. Francisville I’d never even heard of before?

It’s a point of pride that I’ve made it through three boys in Cub Scouts and never once attended a Cub Scout camping trip, or as I like to call them, “dad-supervised Lord of the Flies.” But I was curious about this Feliciana nature preserve. So, as soon as the boys returned, I planned a family trip to check out the little-known property. 

Owned and maintained by the Nature Conservancy, the land that is now Mary Ann Brown Preserve was donated by Baton Rouge businessman L. Heidel Brown and his wife in memory of their daughter. Similar in topography to the nearby Tunica Hills area, the Preserve features nearly two and a half miles of hiking trails through 110 acres of hardwood forest, the kind that once covered the hills of the Felicianas. Visitors have been greeted by white-tailed deer, rabbits, beavers, and even ambling box turtles. This is also the only region in the state where you can see chipmunks.

“It’s a little gem,” said Will deGravelles, Director of Land Protection and Stewardship for the Nature Conservancy in Louisiana. “We acquired it in the mid-nineties, so we’ve had it for a long time, but it’s a little bit off the beaten path and still not well known.”

Down the road from Audubon State Historic Site, where famed artist John James Audubon worked as a tutor while painting his birds, the Preserve’s parking lot is readily accessible but easy to overlook. Once inside the fence, though, the well-maintained trail guided us deep into the trees, across a leaf-blanketed floor underneath a canopy of pine, mature beech, and Southern magnolias. 

DeGravelles explained that the land here was formed by loess, wind-blown silt that was mostly deposited on the east side of the Mississippi River in previous ice ages. The silt originated from rock ground up by massive glaciers, which was flushed into the Mississippi River’s floodplain when the glaciers receded during warming periods. Over the course of hundreds of years, the loess soils were picked up and deposited, forming what we now know as the Tunica Hills. A small stream on the property cuts through the sandy soil, its path carving a deep ravine with steep sides cradling the water below. The loop trail crisscrosses the stream several times, providing interesting shifts in the moderate walk. 

“My favorite part is that it’s always a little different in every season—the views, aesthetics, wildlife, birds,” said deGravelles. “I encourage people to go experience it in each season. Some of our other preserves are that way too, but it’s truer here than at any other.” 

The Nature Conservancy protects twenty-one properties in Louisiana. All but five are closed to the public due to sensitive species and natural communities, or to accessibility issues at remote locations. Fortunately, Mary Ann Brown Preserve is open every day of the year during daylight hours.

“The Nature Conservancy is regularly offered land donations that we can’t take,” said deGravelles, detailing how the organization must carefully select its conservation priorities due to the intensive demands of land management. The Nature Conservancy also acquires land, which it then sells, donates, or transfers to other agencies to manage. An example is the Bluebonnet Swamp, which is today overseen by the Recreation and Park Commission for the Parish of East Baton Rouge (BREC). In Mary Ann Brown’s case, though, the Nature Conservancy not only accepted the land donation but also decided to keep it under its own management. 

“Mary Ann Brown is partly valuable because of its location near Baton Rouge, which has so few nature preserves of that type,” said deGravelles. He explained how the area is a Southern Mesophytic Forest, a habitat where plants grow on rich, ‘mesic’ soils, or medium conditions of moisture. “The land is not particularly rare, but it’s valuable in terms of wildlife and the forest in those loess hills. And it does have a couple of rare species, such as the Carpenter’s groundcherry.” Calliphysalis carpenter, or Carpenter’s groundcherry, is a perennial plant in the nightshade family named for Louisiana naturalist William Marbury Carpenter. 

Unfortunately, we missed both the Carpenter’s groundcherry and the elusive chipmunks on our visit, but we did see blooming wild roses and an abundance of birds flitting through the trees. The trail’s end brought us to a pavilion with bathrooms and a scenic pond, complete with a pond house. It was the perfect spot to prepare an afternoon picnic while the boys took to the pond to see what lurked beneath its waters. 

DeGravelles noted that any groups involving children, such as boy scouts, churches, or school groups, are welcome to reserve the campsite by calling 225-338-1040 or emailing lafo@tnc.org. Camping is free with a refundable deposit.