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Located within the Mississippi River's alluvial plain in adjoining Ripley County in southeastern Missouri and Clay County in northeastern Arkansas is an unusual woodland. A gently undulating series of ancient sand dunes contains a series of shallow depressions surrounded by low sandy ridges. In winter and spring, these sand ponds hold water and create a unique habitat that supports a large population of pondberry, one of the nation's rarest shrubs. Pondberry resembles spicebush, a close relative that is common in moist woodlands, but the rare pondberry has very specialized habitat requirements. At Sand Ridge it is restricted to the seasonally flooded sand ponds, where it is one of few plants that can survive in this alternating submerged and dry habitat. Pondberry has been designated as endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The Nature Conservancy has designated a priority conservation site of approximately 16,000 acres in the area to conserve the pondberry and a series of rare natural community types, as well as rare species such as corkwood, mole salamander and western mud snake.
Strategies and Progress
The Conservancy has been actively working for more than 20 years to conserve the Sand Ridge site, which lies within an area of rapid agricultural development, including precision grading and leveling of the dune system to support rice cultivation. Protected lands originally acquired by the Conservancy include the Missouri Department of Conservation's 202-acre Sand Ponds Conservation Area; the Conservancy's 250-acre Nancy B. Altvater Pondberry Preserve, also in Missouri; and the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission's 140-acre Stateline Sand Ponds Natural Area.
Environmental stresses on the site include habitat fragmentation and destruction, land leveling, altered groundwater and surface water regimes and water-quality issues such as excessive sedimentation and contaminants. The Conservancy's strategies for minimizing those stresses include continuing to build solid scientific knowledge of the site on which to base conservation measures, working with appropriate governmental agencies to achieve water flows that will sustain the site's habitats and cooperating with existing partners and building new partnerships that will result in collaborative approaches to conserving the site and its resources.
The Sand Ridge Lands' sandy base, bottomland water cycle of seasonal flooding and drying, and southern climate have combined to create a rare, perhaps unique, natural community. Preservation of that exceptional community will result in the conservation of a number of rare species of plants and animals, including the endangered pondberry.
Photo credits (top to bottom, left to right): Pondberry © National Heritage; © TNC
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