Karner is a hamlet of the town of Colonie, Albany County

Albany County, New York

Albany County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York, and is part of the Albany-Schenectady-Troy Metropolitan Statistical Area. The name is from the title of the Duke of York and Albany, who became James II of England . As of the 2010 census, the population was 304,204...

, New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. Once called Center Station it was a stop along the New York Central Railroad

New York Central Railroad

The New York Central Railroad , known simply as the New York Central in its publicity, was a railroad operating in the Northeastern United States...

 (NYCRR) that became famous for being the site where the Karner Blue

Karner Blue

The Karner Blue, Lycaeides melissa samuelis, is a small, blue butterfly found in small areas of New Jersey, the Great Lakes region, southern New Hampshire, and the Capital District region of New York. The butterfly, whose lifecycle depends on the wild blue lupine flower , is classified as an...

 butterfly

Butterfly

A butterfly is a mainly day-flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, which includes the butterflies and moths. Like other holometabolous insects, the butterfly's life cycle consists of four parts: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Most species are diurnal. Butterflies have large, often brightly coloured...

 was first identified.

History

Karner started as Center Station along the New York Central Railroad's (NYCRR) tracks. The station was built in 1831. George Karner in the mid-to-late 19th century bought the land that would become the hamlet and laid out streets and lots, though most did not sell. Center was renamed Karner in 1880 for him. Though development never made Karner important the lack of development did save the Lycaeides melissa samuelis, or Karner Blue

Karner Blue

The Karner Blue, Lycaeides melissa samuelis, is a small, blue butterfly found in small areas of New Jersey, the Great Lakes region, southern New Hampshire, and the Capital District region of New York. The butterfly, whose lifecycle depends on the wild blue lupine flower , is classified as an...

 butterfly. The common name of the butterfly is named after the hamlet because it was here that Vladimir Nabokov

Vladimir Nabokov

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...

 first identified the species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 and used the specimens located in the Albany Pine Bush as the type specimen for the identification of the entire species.

Geography

Karner is centered along Karner Road with the CSXT/Amtrak

Amtrak

The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak , is a government-owned corporation that was organized on May 1, 1971, to provide intercity passenger train service in the United States. "Amtrak" is a portmanteau of the words "America" and "track". It is headquartered at Union...

 tracks between Albany and Schenectady passing through the center of the hamlet. Along the western edge of Karner is the New Karner Road, New York Route 155. The edges surrounding the core of the hamlet are rural pine barrens

Pine barrens

Pine barrens, pine plains, sand plains, or pinelands occur throughout the northeastern U.S. from New Jersey to Maine as well as the Midwest and Canada....

 with much of the land protected in the Pine Bush Preserve.

Location