Named after its most significant botanical treasure, Lignumvitae Key Botanical State Park is a gem of the Florida Keys.
The 280-acre island is topped with a virgin tropical forest home to more than a thousand lignum vitae trees, some thought to be more than two thousand years old.
Shallow waters along Lignumvitae KeyResources
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Overview
Length: 0.5 mile round-trip hike
Trailhead: 24.9036, -80.6944
Address: 77200 Overseas Hwy, Islamorada
Fees: $2.50 per person, plus $2 per person for guided tour
Restroom: At the Matheson House
Land manager: Florida State Parks
Phone: 305-664-2540
Open 8 AM to 4 PM, Thu-Mon. Winter is the best time to visit. The mosquitoes are fierce enough park staff recommended a bug suit for a late November visit. A headnet is advisible.
Directions
An island, the park can only be reached by private boat or sea kayaking. The nearest launch is Robbie’s Marina at the north end of Lower Matecumbe Key. Florida Keys Boat Rentals provides ferry service to the island Fri-Sun 1-4. Call ahead: 305-644-5533.
About the Park
The park’s purpose is to preserve its forest of lignum vitae trees. They grow in tropical hammocks on surrounding islands, including Upper Matecumbe, but not so densely.
Slow growing, these relatively short trees sport distinctive deep bluish-purple flowers each spring. You won’t mistake it for any other tree, since branches crisscross at odd angles.
Criss-crossing branches of a lignum vitaeThe tree has been credited with medicinal properties, hence lignumvitae, “the tree of life.”
Cut, its wood weighs 80 pounds per cubic foot. One of the densest woods on earth, it sinks rather than floats.
Paddling to the island means crossing an expanse of shallow water once you’re out of Lignumvitae Channel.
There is a boat ramp amid the mangroves within sight of the dock where the ferryboat ties up.
Red mangrove off the marl shoreline of Lignumvitae KeyFront and center is the Matheson House, where you learn key facts about the tree and the history of this island.
William Matheson owned chemical companies and mingled with “in” crowd of industrialists who migrated south every winter.
He bought up many of Miami’s wild tropical hammocks from Coconut Grove south in the early 1900s, including Key Biscayne.
Not all stayed intact, but he donated 80 acres to Dade County for a park in 1929. We now know that waterfront gem with a tropical forest as Matheson Hammock.
His descendants also donated the north end of Key Biscayne to the county for Crandon Park.
Matheson bought Lignumvitae Key in 1919 for a dollar. It wasn’t to preserve the hammock, but rather to test the viability of certain exotic plants for making chemical dyes.
Twenty acres of land were cleared for the experiment. Matheson installed a caretaker in this home crafted with native materials, dependent on a rainwater cistern for fresh water.
Lignumvitae Key was passed along to Matheson’s son and escaped possible development in the late 1960s.
The caretaker’s house is now the park visitor center. It is open when the park is, and has interpretive information inside.
Matheson HouseHike
Using an interpretive guide found at the visitor center, a guided walking tour around the cleared portion of the island around the house may be done on your own.
When park rangers are available to lead guided hikes through the hammock, as we had, the tropical hammock is a delight to immerse in.
Trailside lignum vitae in the tropical hammockOtherwise, the trails are closed to visitors to protect its natural wonders, both plant and animal. It’s also to protect you from poisonous plants and voracious mosquitoes.
This tropical hammock hosts not just rare-to-Florida Caribbean plant species, but delicate Liguus tree snails and rare Florida purplewing butterflies.
A guided hike takes a half mile round-trip into the forest to a large solution hole edged by a thicket of the island’s namesake trees.
Solution holeExplore More!
Nearby Adventures
More worth exploring while you’re in this area.
Green Turtle Hammock Nature Preserve On a wild sliver of Upper Matecumbe Key, footpaths wind through a rockland tropical hammock where a rocky crevice emits sulfur fumes and signs warn of crocodiles. 
Plantation Hammocks Preserve Adjoining Founders Park on Plantation Key, Plantation Hammocks Preserve showcases some of the Florida Keys most interesting flowers under a generous canopy of well-established tropical trees.
Indian Key: An Unusual Ghost Town John takes a trip back in time with Florida Keys historian Brad Bertelli to discover the layers of history found on Indian Key, once the county seat of Dade County
Windley Key Hammock Trail Learn about the trees of the Florida Keys with a walk on the 0.6-mile Hammock Trail, a deeply shaded ramble in a tropical forest at Windley Key Fossil Reef Geological State Park.
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