Florida Hikes

Hike Bike Paddle Camp Florida with authors Sandra Friend and John Keatley as your guides

Star-like white blooms against a forest floor in a swamp

Florida Wildflowers

Florida’s wildflowers give a compelling reason to get outdoors. Use these resources to identify what you see.

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One thing we never tire of along Florida’s trails: the constant parade of wildflowers we enjoy year-round.

Different habitats see peak blooms at different times of year, meaning opportunities to see something in bloom everywhere. Flamboyant tropical flowers, delicate orchids, masses of pitcher plants, hillsides covered in trillium – we’ve got it all!

Marshall Swamp Botanically rich hikes along the Florida Trail With more than 1,400 miles of hiking statewide, the Florida Trail provides a gateway to grand landscapes for botanical beauty. Here are our top suggestions for fascinating botanical destinations along the Florida Trail.
Swamp sunflowers Florida Hikes for Botanical Beauty Enjoy Florida's botanical bounty with this handpicked selection of walks in the woods to see spectacular wildflowers, big trees, and unique habitats throughout the state of Florida.

Florida Wildflower Habitats

Spring is a great time for seeing blooms in pine savannas, wetlands and prairies. In summer, tropical, coastal, and mangrove habitats. Fall is a delight in the drier habitats, including sandhills and scrub. It’s also when floodplains are ablaze with native sunflowers.

Oak and palm hammock at Starvation Slough Forests Forests come in many different forms in Florida, ranging from broad and open to densely packed with vegetation.
Kissimmee Prairie Preserve Prairies Florida's prairies come in two flavors: dry and wet. Prairies are treeless, open grasslands, many of which are seasonally inundated with water.
Scrub ridge at Lyonia Preserve, Deltona Scrub Florida's desert, the scrub, forms on well-drained, loose “sugar sand” deposited along ancient shorelines, hosting Florida’s oldest plant communities.
Needlerush marsh to horizon with canal and palm tree foreground Wetlands Florida has numerous wetland habitats - forests, prairies, and swamps - that are flooded or seasonally inundated during the summer months or rainier years.

Carnivorous Plant Bogs Tropical Forests Mangrove Forests

Resources

Resources for discovering Florida wildflower walks
North Florida Panhandle Explorers Guide book cover 50 Hikes in Central Florida 50 Hikes in North Florida book cover 50 Hikes in South Florida book cover Five Star Trails Gainesville Ocala book cover 5 Star Trails Orlando Hikers Guide to the Sunshine State book cover
 
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Best Destinations for Wildflower Viewing

Some of the places where we’ve simply said “wow” to the wildflowers we’ve seen. We’re sure you will, too.

John photographs a liguus tree snail in Everglades National Park Adding to the Life List Although John is a native Floridian, our research trip to South Florida became an opportunity for him to see many natural "firsts" in Florida that most people have on their life lists.
Sinkhole in forest At San Felasco Hammock At San Felasco Hammock Preserve State Park, two hiking trail systems offer two different perspectives on karst landscapes and dense deciduous forests.
Pine lily Explore Pine Lily Preserve Orange County's Pine Lily Preserve in Bithlo is a great wildflower walk in any season, since carnivorous plants are common in its bogs.
Paynes Prairie blooms Paynes Prairie: A North Florida Gem A natural landform between Gainesville and Micanopy, Paynes Prairie is an immense and ever-changing basin.
Enormous strap fern Stranding Steves at Fakahatchee Exploring Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park for a chapter of a new book we're writing, a pair of park rangers named Steve guide us to the park's beauty spots
Trumpet-leaf pitcher plants Summer in the Savannas Summer is prime time for delicate orchids and carnivorous plants among the bogs of the Apalachicola National Forest, especially along the Apalachee Savannas Scenic Byway.
Lake Jesup Wilderness Sunflower Season on the St. Johns River near Orlando In September, swamp sunflowers put on a colorful show along the St. Johns River between Sanford and Geneva, north of Orlando. Here's where to take a hike to find them.
ghost orchid The Ghost Orchid On a guided swamp walk into the Fakahatchee Strand, I discover how difficult it is to spot a ghost orchid on your own, let alone keep your bearings in this tangled tropical wilderness
Hammock Sink at Leon Sinks Walk in the woods at Leon Sinks South of Tallahassee in the Apalachicola National Forest is one of Florida's most beautiful and intriguing trail systems showcasing the weird and wonderful world of karst topography

Our overview of distinct destinations for seasonal wildflowers.

Lake Jesup Wilderness Wildflower Hikes Discover great wildflower walks in Florida no matter the season, with spring and fall top blooming periods.

And a very unique field experience with a notable botanist who is no longer with us.

Angus Gholson in his herbarium A Walk with Angus Gholson While researching Exploring Florida's Botanical Wonders, I had the honor of a visit to Angus Gholson's herbarium in Chattahoochee, as well as a guided hike through the new Gholson Nature Park, a wonderland of rare wildflowers.

Our Florida Wildflower Profiles All Wildflower Destinations Atlas of Florida Plants Florida Wildflower Foundation

Sandra Friend
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