Editing Eastern Prickly Pear (section)

==== Concerns About Preservation ====

On one hand, the Ingham Hill Colony is guaranteed protection from potentially invasive development because its presence has been thoroughly documented during site surveys for a proposed golf course.  This means that if any future development plans should come to pass, the Ingham Hill Colony will be responsibly handled and appropriated protected.

Unfortunately, the more serious problem faced by the ''O. humifusa'' of the Ingham Hill Colony is that of forest succession.  Tall deciduous trees tightly crowd the perimeter of the rocky outcrop upon which the colony is growing.  Assuming that these trees will continue to grow taller and fuller, extending branches into the gap in the canopy, they will inevitably shade out the ''O. humifusa'', first rendering them incapable of flowering and eventually robbing them of sunlight altogether.  This chain of events, should it occur, will serve to eliminate the Ingham Hill Colony in perhaps as little as 10 years.

Judging by the plentitude of stone walls on the forest floor, it is safe to say that the entire area of the modern forest was in use as pasture land until at least the late 1800s.  The colony of ''O. humifusa'' likely appeared within a decade or two after the pasture was abandoned.  At that time, the only trees in the immediate vicinity of the colony would have been the coniferous ''Juniperus virginiana'' (Eastern Red Cedar), known to be a hardy pioneer species.  Because ''J. virginiana'' is relatively low-growing on rocky soils, these trees would have posed no serious threat to the sunlight requirements of ''O. humifusa''.  Aerial photography from 1934 shows that the area of the modern-day forest was, at that time, still a patchy scrubland which would've been quite conducive to ''O. humifusa''.  The vegetation of this scrubland habitat would've continued to thicken after the 1930s, though.  In time, probably between the late 1940s and early 1960s, taller deciduous trees began to dominate the land.  Currently, even the ring of ''J. virginiana'' surrounding the colony is being shaded out by the deciduous canopy which is nearly twice as tall and growing more dense each year.

Based upon my examination of many ''O. humifusa'' colonies in the state, and considering the decidedly shade-intolerant habit of ''O. humifusa'', it is my belief that the Ingham Hill Colony is doomed to be shaded-out within the coming decade.  To the best of my knowledge, the loss of the Ingham Hill Colony would represent the extirpation of ''O. humifusa'' in Old Saybrook.  However, the plight of the Ingham Hill Colony also provides crucial insight into the severe decline of ''O. humifusa'' throughout the state since the early 1900s.  In all likelihood, extinct colonies that were once known to live inland in towns such as Scotland and Burlington probably suffered the same fate as what seems to lie ahead of the Ingham Hill Colony.  That is, those colonies initially grew upon old, rocky fields and pastures which initially provided excellent habitat for ''O. humifusa''.  In time, as succession took place turning pasture into meadow and meadow into forest, the ''O. humifusa'' would inevitably have been shaded-out and disappeared from the landscape altogether.  For instance, tt is possible that the ''O. humifusa'' of the Ingham Hill Colony are the last remaining descendants from a colony which was once much larger and more wide-spread throughout the vicinity in past decades.