The Eno River Association’s Blue Indigo Preserve is 23 acres of rare diabase plant habitat in the Lower Eno. This preserve has two quarter-mile neighborhood trails, one located on Stanley Road in Durham and the other on Old Oxford Road in Durham.
Since 2003 the Eno River Association has worked with the NC Plant Conservation Program and NC Botanical Garden on the Diabase Sill Project Partnership. This Partnership is named for the distinct geological formation of hard igneous rock found within the Lower Eno River basin in Durham. The basic soils weathered from the underlying Diabase rock have heavily influenced the area’s topography and ecology, supporting a highly diverse and rare community of plants.
The Partnership acquires, restores, and manages properties to serve two goals: protection and restoration of habitat for the native rare plant communities in the upland areas and protection of riparian buffers for water quality. The rare plant community protected as part of this project includes species such as the federally endangered smooth purple coneflower (Echinacea laevigata), as well as state rare species such as Earle’s blazing star (Liatris squarrulosa), Glade wild quinine (Parthenium auriculatum), hoary puccoon (Lithospermum canescens), and blue wild indigo (Baptisia australis).
In addition to the Blue Indigo Preserve, The NC Botanical Garden manages Penny’s Bend Nature Preserve and the NC Plant Conservation Program has two rare plant preserves within the diabase sill: Eno River Diabase Sill Plant Conservation Preserve and Hebron Road Plant Conservation Preserve. These two preserves can only be accessed by special permit or guided tour. For visitor information, please contact the NC Plant Conservation Program or their support organization, the Friends of Plant Conservation.
