Rome Sand Plains is a fifteen thousand-acre inland pine barrens landscape west of Rome, New York, and one of only a few such habitats remaining in the United States. Its sand dunes, peat bogs, forests, meadows, and wetlands are a relic of ancient Lake Iroquois, whose higher waters once drained through the Mohawk and Hudson rivers near this site. That ice-age origin helps explain the area's sharp contrast with surrounding farmland. The sand plains support varied plant communities and rare species, including purple pitcher plant, sundew, red-shouldered hawks, martens, and the threatened frosted elfin butterfly. After mining and a proposed expansion around 1980, conservation efforts protected about four thousand acres.