Bear Swamp at

The Red Lion Preserve

Bear Swamp at the Red Lion Preserve is a great example of an Atlantic white cedar forest, with some beech specimens estimated around 150 to 187 years old. Other species include sassafras, white oak, chestnut oak, Southern red oak, American holly, pitch pine, short-leaf pine, black gum, red maple, and black cherry. 

The location of Bear Swamp is transitional between the inner coastal plain (with better quality soils) and the outer coastal plain (with very sandy, generally less nutrient rich soils). However, other evidence points towards these beech trees having advanced age, most notable are the abundance and diversity of nonvascular epiphytic organisms on their bark. You can find many trees whose bark is covered with many different species of mosses as well as three types of lichens – crustose, foliose, and fruticose.

Bear Swamp at the Red Lion Preserve is a vast, unspoiled forest that is tremendously important to the surrounding community as it helps to recharge the aquifer that supplies the Delaware River Watershed. The 2,100-acre forest is managed by the New Jersey Natural Lands Trust- an independent agency that "acquires open space primarily by donations of land and easements" in order to "preserve land in its natural state for enjoyment by the public and to protect natural diversity".