Late Winter at Fort Parker State Park

An interesting limestone creek wall with black maidenhair ferns, Adiantum capillus-veneris.

Sound on for lovely creek sounds.

Golden-eye Lichen, Teloschistes chrysophthalmus with a sunburst lichen, Xanthomendoza weberi.

Winter Grapefern, Holubiella lunarioides

White Avens, Geum canadense

Common Script Lichen, Graphis scripta, with an unidentified liverwort.

Orthotrichum pusillum moss with a rosette lichen, Physcia sp.

Bare-bottom Sunburst Lichen, Xanthomendoza weberi

Roundleaf Scurfpea, Pediomelum rhombifolium

Alabama Lipfern, Myriopteris alabamensis

Overlook of the Navasota River

Bulbous Adder’s-Tongue, Ophioglossum crotalophoroides

Cutgrass (Zizaniopsis miliacea) & creek

A stately bur oak, Quercus macrocarpa

Blunt Woodsia, Woodsia obtusa

Small spring at the east end of the lake/Navasota River

Ranunculus sp. at the spring

In mid-January I went up to Fort Parker State Park to “camp” with two friends for a long weekend. For two of us, it was our third trip to this state park for such an adventure. Located between Waco and Fairfield (aka: I-35 & I-45) near Mexia and Groesbeck, it occupies an area of the state that is mostly devoid of public land. Without Fairfield Lake State Park nearby, the park really is on its own right now. TPWD has been slowly adding additional park land from 2023’s Centennial Parks Fund. However, most of those parcels have been in the Hill Country and a lot of them have been just to add additional adjacent land to current parks. Which is great to hear but doesn’t really fix the void in some areas of the state.

The weekend ended up being pretty chilly and so we were all thankful to be inside a trailer instead of inside a tent at night! I did end up going on several solo hikes in the afternoon when everyone wanted to have some quiet time (this is what happens when a bunch of introverts get together) so I meandered down a few trails to explore. I’ve been turning to the smaller lifeforms during the winter season and it has actually been very rewarding. Without blooming plants, I find myself drawn to lichens, mosses, liverworts, and ferns instead and I was richly rewarded on this trip.

All of the ferns were a big surprise. I had looked at iNat a week or so before I left to get an idea of what might be blooming but didn’t really pay attention to some of the ferns, though a few of them hadn’t been identified in the park before I found them (at least on iNaturalist). The trail with the maidenhair fern wall was a trail I had not explored in my two prior trips to the park and so I was thrilled to come across it. The Baines Creek Trail is 5 miles round trip and I didn’t have the time to hike the entire trail this time. I probably hiked maybe 1.25 miles round trip because I was puttering along to look for things to photograph. On some future trip I’ll have to hike the entire trail and I also want to paddle up the Navasota River sometime as there are also limestone bluffs on it.

Don’t sleep on this state park! It has a lot of great trails and interesting things to see and the campgrounds aren’t so large to be overwhelming and crowded, either. This was my second January trip and the first trip here was in May.