Nature in the Delaware Valley
Although populated and developed to death during the 1900s and early 2000s, the Delaware Valley features an amazing variety of flora and fauna today. Blessed with a moderate climate (for a temperate zone with four seasons), there is a variety of plants and animals found here that is rivaled by only a few other regions in the country. This page is devoted to that unique biodiversity.
Brandywine River / Creek
Surprisingly, a wealth of many different species of trees and plants are to be found in our public parks and on public property. A great place to start is Brandywine Creek Park in the City of Wilmington, Delaware.
The Brandywine itself begins its trek as water bubbling up from a natural spring in the rolling hills near North Wales, Pennsylvania. In all, this important waterway meanders its way through 120 miles of beautiful countryside from the fringes of Pennsylvania Dutch Country near its headwaters, down through miles of fertile farmland, then - abruptly - through such cities as Coatesville and Downingtown, Pennsylvania. The Brandywine is then given back to nature for a good many miles. As it nears the Delaware State Line, deciduous forestland lines its banks. Life teems - both on the banks and in the water. As the Brandywine approaches Wilmington, the largest city in the First State, it enters a gorge or deeply cut valley where the banks rise sharply upwards on either side. The flow of the creek now becomes much more swift and urgent. Man-made dams become more common - many dating back to the 1800s. The creek in this area was used for many decades to furnish power for all the many and varied mills that dotted its banks in this region. Several millraces still exist today, and one or two are still kept in good repair. The two most notable and easily accessible are at Hagley Museum (site of the former DuPont Powder Mills) and in Brandywine Park in the city itself.
The last three or four miles of the Brandywine are some of the most scenic. It emerges from the gorge-like "semi-canyon" in the northern reaches of Wilmington proper near a neighborhood known as Trolley Square. Brandywine Park begins here. The flow of the creek takes it deeper into the city itself. A striking white stone bridge dating back to around 1909 crosses the creek at Van Buren Street. Another third of a mile downstream is the imposing and impressive Washington Street Bridge. It was built in the 1920s and dedicated to the veterans of World War I. There is a dam just under this bridge that marks the last such barrier on the stream. Below this dam, the creek flows unfettered for another 100 to 200 yards before becoming tidal around the Market Street Bridge. The last two miles of its course is spent as a tidal waterway. Light draught vessels (mostly private fishermen) ply this stretch of the creek all the way to its mouth on the east side of the city.
Below: Looking upstream at the last non-tidal stretch of the Brandywine. Washington Street Bridge is in the distance.
Below: Another view - a little closer to Washington Street Bridge.
Some really cool trees in the park. The first three are species not commonly associated in peoples' minds as thriving in the Mid-Atlantic States. ...Yet, here they are!
Below: Magnolia Grandiflora or "Southern Magnolia." In the Deep South, these trees are commonly 100 feet or taller. Here in Delaware, they get pretty big too.
Flowers and foliage from the same tree.
If you've never smelled one of these flowers right on the tree, you don't know what you're missing!
