A field guide to the flowers and wildlife of Fort Tryon Park

Fort Tryon Park, in Upper Manhattan, New York City, contains a surprising number of flower varieties, both planted and native. In 2010, photographer Gabe Kirchheimer began documenting them, along with the park’s wildlife and landscapes, and this site—the world’s largest park flower ID database—is the result.

The park’s Heather Garden contains over 550 varieties of flowering perennials, shrubs and trees, and over 30 varieties of heather and heath. Abundant park wildlife includes hawks, visiting bald eagles, hummingbirds, songbirds, skunks, groundhogs, raccoons, opossums, garter and brown snakes and the occasional coyote. Insect species include tiger, pipevine, black swallowtail, monarch and red admiral butterflies, and the hummingbird moth and praying mantis.

Fort Tryon Park, which was designed by the Olmsted Brothers and opened in 1935, is a New York City Scenic Landmark on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. With expansive views of the Hudson River, the 67-acre park was an important site of the Revolutionary War Battle of Fort Washington on November 16, 1776, in which British and Hessian mercenary soldiers attacked smaller American forces. The park contains The Met Cloisters, a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art housing the Unicorn Tapestries and other medieval artworks.

In 2018, our Flower Capital of Manhattan poster was selected by Artists Unite, NOMAA and the MTA for installation in the 190th Street subway station on the A line. The poster can be downloaded here.