Acknowledgements
FUNDING
A generous grant from the Vivian J. Palmieri Charitable Trust paid for the permanent plant labels along the nature trails and for the creation and maintenance of this website.
Vivian Jerry Palmieri was an avid gardener and nature lover. Following his death in 2014, the Trust was established to promote rose plantings around Jamestown, RI. Subsequently, the geographical and charitable scope of the Trust has broadened.
DEVELOPMENT
This project was developed by Friends of Salter Grove (FoSG) with the approval and support of Warwick’s Parks and Recreation Department and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management.
FoSG members Marina Wong and Peter Becker designed the website’s structure and produced its content.
Brave River Solutions created this website to FoSG's specifications.
Precision Signs & Labels fabricated all the botanical labels, and trail and observation post markers.
Fossil Industries fabricated the plaques on totems and elsewhere.
RESOURCES
Arthur Haines, Senior Research Botanist of Native Plant Trust, provided taxonomic advice, as well as numerous plant identifications and verifications from photographs and specimens.
Paul Dolan, forester and Area Director of the Rhode Island Resource Conservation and Development Council, confirmed tree identifications in the field.
Matthew Largess, Founder and President of Largess Forestry, Inc. identified old growth trees in the park.
David Mozzoni contributed 116 out of 170 checklists of bird sightings at Salter Grove since 2006 on eBird.
Bird photos are by Jason Major (jpmajor@me.com) or Tom Younkin (kingbirder.com) unless otherwise credited.
Plant photos are by Marina Wong unless otherwise credited.
Josie Gudiel provided the aerial shot of Rock Island in the Homepage slideshow of computer versions of this Guide.
Much of the Culture section was based on Warwick Downs: A Sense of Place 1638-1972 by Henry A.L. Brown and Hazel Wade Kennedy.
Nancy Brown-Garcia provided the drawing of Narragansett life prior to their encounter with European settlers in Culture and the annotations of that image in Resources.
Henry A. L. Brown provided the image of the Nicholas Brown mansion in Culure from his personal collection via Felicia Gardella of the Warwick Historical Society.
The aerial photos in Culture and Resources were commissioned by the Rhode Island Department of Administration and provided to FoSG by the URI Environmental Data Center through the kind assistance of Erica Tefft. Matt Dickinson aligned the images and adjusted their scale to create a uniform temporal series.
Former Warwick resident, Margie Degnan, shared some of her summertime memories from Warwick Downs in a 1993 article of The Bridge, a local newspaper published by the Pawtuxet Village Association, which provided a copy for Resources.
The Geology section is substantially based on of Connecticut and Rhode Island by James W. Skehan and edited by Jonathan D. Alvarez, CPG.
The Weather section is substantially based on Weather for Dummies by John D. Cox and edited by T. J. Del Santo.
Carl Schulz produced the maps of vegetation types and trails.
Jason Major modified and refined images and provided some weather photos.
Carolyn Hardie, Billy McGovern, Nick Pasterino, and Nancy Sumrall curated the trails and staged many of the plants featured in the guide.
FreeTTS and WellSaid provided the text-to-speech service used to create the voiceovers in the Welcome video displayed on the Homepage of mobile versions of this Guide.
Species accounts and narratives for the observation posts are based on field observations at Salter Grove and information gleaned from the following websites. Other links used, but not listed below, are embedded within the associated text.
Birds
Plants
Virginia Tech Dendrology Fact Sheets