Everglades National Park, Florida, USA Photograph by David Olson   Southern North America: Southeastern United States Tropical and Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests   800 square miles (2,100 square kilometers) -- about the size of Rhode Island Critical/Endangered

· Florida’s Hidden Treasure
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
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Florida’s Hidden Treasure

Amidst the hustle and bustle of urbanized South Florida there is a hidden treasure that gives us a rare glimpse of years past. A step into the pine forests of the South Florida Rocklands is a step back to a time when frequent lightning fires created a unique and fascinating subtropical habitat dominated by slash pines and palmettos. In the patches of pine forest that remain, you can still find hundreds of different species of trees and shrubs covered with a bounty of orchids, bromeliads, ferns, and vines. Many of these plants are endemic, and they provide homes to a multitude of animals from beautiful tree snails to the rare and endangered Florida panther.

Special Features

Did you ever think that a fire blazing through your home could be a good thing? Well, it could be if you were a pine tree and your "home" was the habitat of the South Florida Rocklands ecoregion. This habitat would not exist without periodic fires, which create ideal conditions for the pine forests to flourish by cleaning brush and understory for more pines to grow. Now they also help to clear out invasive, non-native species such as Brazilian pepper.

	The South Florida Rocklands ecoregion supports the only true subtropical forest on the United States mainland.

Wild Side

As you look around the forests of the South Florida Rocklands, your eyes are treated to an amazing diversity of shapes and colors. At least 137 different species of trees, 18 species of vines and shrubs, and seven species of palms live here. The trees drip with a bounty of orchids, bromeliads, and ferns. More than 250 herbaceous plants have been recorded here; 37 species are endemic to the pine rocklands. In addition to the Florida panther, such lush and diverse forests provide a home for the key deer, the mangrove fox squirrel, the white-crowned pigeon, and the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker.

Cause for Concern

So much land has been cleared for agriculture and urban development in the Miami area and the Florida Keys that the South Florida Rocklands that once existed are now almost entirely gone. Only about 2 percent of the original habitat remains in small, isolated fragments surrounded by water or cities -- some patches even between highways. And as the human population continues to grow, we increasingly want to control and stop the fires that are essential to the survival of the pine forests. What's more, exotic plants such as Brazilian pepper threaten to outcompete native plants, and an increase in the water table from irrigation kills the pines. Taken together, these factors make the ecoregion very vulnerable to natural disturbances such as hurricanes.

For more information on this ecoregion, go to the World Wildlife Fund Scientific Report.