Hike Bike Paddle Camp Florida with authors Sandra Friend and John Keatley as your guides
Identifications of common and unusual plants and trees found in Florida
Information about the plants and trees found in Florida.
A giant among trees, the bald cypress is an imposing sight. Unlike its relative the pond cypress, it prefers growing along water in motion, such as rivers, streams, and sluggish swamps.
Black mangroves have shiny leaves and dark round seed cases. Their most distinguishing feature is their pnuemataphores, finger-like protrusions around the tree like slender, miniature cypress knees.
Buttonwood grows upland, on the land side of the mangrove community, tolerant of rooting in loose sand, rock, and dried marl.
The state tree of Florida, the cabbage palm (also called sabal palm) is an iconic symbol found in almost every habitat in Florida, although it is less frequently seen in upland areas.
Large puffy lichens, such as pale greenish-gray Cladina evansii and yellowish Cladina subtenuis are lumped under the colloquial name of deer moss.
Eupatorium capillifolium
Florida rosemary (Ceratiola ericoides) is not related to the edible herb rosemary, which is in the mint family. It is one of the showier shrubs in scrub habitat due to its rounded shape and sometimes enormous size.
Southeast Florida is home to two poisonous trees, the poisonwood and the manchineel. Learn how to recognize them so you don’t get too close, and find out how truly dangerous they are.
Flowering mounds of gray nickerbean are found along the tropical coastal habitats of Florida. The beans float away with the tide and are polished by the waves, appearing as “sea beans” on other shores.
Epidendrum conopseum
Gulf Coast lupine (Lupinus westianus) is a threatened species found in sandhill/clayhill habitats in the far western corner of Florida.
The tallest of Florida’s pines, longleaf pine also has the longest needles, more than a foot long. Favored for lumber, most of the longleaf pine forests of the Southeast have been logged, but you can still immerse in impressive longleaf pine stands on Florida’s trails.
