Discover endangered animals, native plants in preserves tucked in South Florida neighborhoods

From Sun Sentinel: Discover endangered animals, native plants in preserves tucked in South Florida neighborhoods

Get a glimpse into Florida's past — before the people, subdivisions, condo canyons and air-conditioned shopping malls wiped them out.

Just off bustling Oakland Park Boulevard, explore an ancient beach dune where endangered gopher tortoises burrow and roam the white sugar sand. Pluck delicious wild huckleberries off a bush as native Zebra Longwings flutter about.

These and other treasures are quietly waiting to be discovered inside preserves and forests hiding in neighborhoods in Oakland Park, Boca Raton, Coral Springs and other South Florida cities.

Lakeside Sand Pine Preserve in Oakland Park has 5.4 acres of white, sugar sand with flowering native plants and burrowing tortoises and other wildlife. The park is west of Interstate 95, just a block off the busy road.

"Most of these [lands] were destroyed through development," say Charles Livio, horticulturist for the City of Oakland Park.

"Forty thousand years ago, this was a coastal sand dune," he says, pointing to the snowy sand carpeting the rare scrubland. "What's unique about this preserve is its soil. It's acidic. Most soil in South Florida is alkaline. Acidic soil supports special native plants, like huckleberry, wild muscadine grape, staggerbush and fetterbush. This sand pine scrub is rare because these were the first lands developed in Florida during the building boom."

Native trees and shrubs include South Florida Slash and Sand Pines, Silver and Green Saw Palmetto, Sand Live Oaks and Myrtle Oaks. The preserve is bordered by two fresh-water lakes, surrounded by businesses and homes.

Back on the trail, Livio points out black and yellow Zebra Longwings, which are the state butterfly, and White Peacock butterflies feeding on the nectar of a beautyberry flower.

Farther down the trail is a rare colony of Reindeer moss. "Those are tiny, primitive lichen that were used by Native Americas to thicken soups and stews," Livio says. "They absorb pollutants from the air like a sponge. They are uncommon to South Florida."

The park, which the city acquired in 2001 through a grant from the Florida Communities Trust overseen by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, is teeming with native fauna favored by burrowing gopher tortoises.

In December, the city adopted and released four of the endangered reptiles, the first in the state to do so under the Waif Tortoise Permit Adoption Program, according to city documents.

"The tortoises are our VIPs," Livio says. "They feast on gopher apple and flowering prickly pear cactus, which grows here in abundance. They only live in this type of habitat, which is hard to find."

Blazing Star

Until you arrive at the Blazing Star Preserve in Boca Raton, that is. Many of the same native plants and a colony of 25 or so tortoises can be found roaming free there, too. The preserve is one of seven in the city.

"Blazing Star is special because you can see how Florida was in the past. It's a little oasis in the middle of the city that's untouched by time," says Dawn Sinka, Boca Raton's horticulturist and arborist.

She says the 24-acre preserve was most likely a part of the same ancient sand dune found in Oakland Park. The land was acquired in 1997 through the Florida Communities Trust, she said.

"If you were standing at Blazing Star tens of thousands of years ago, you would have been looking at the ocean." Today, the view is I-95.

The preserve was named for the purple flowering plant that grows all over the open sunny areas in the park's sugar sand. They flower from September to October, she said.

Bordered by Sugar Sand Park to the west and noisy I-95 to the east, the preserve has 2 acres of wetland at its northeast end. The inaccessible 29-acre Cypress Knee Slough is to the south. The two were once connected before Palmetto Park Road separated them.

"It's special because you can see things that you can't see a quarter mile away. If you just open your eyes and look at them, they're just amazing and beautiful and rare. That makes it worth the trip to see it," Sinka says.

"Did you see the tortoise?" asks Nicolo Atria, pointing out the reptile basking just outside its underground nest. "I wonder how old he is."

Atria, who lives nearby, says he comes to the preserve twice a month. "I like the native trees. I visit botanical gardens and this is right in my own backyard."

Sandy Ridge

Head west to Sandy Ridge Sanctuary in Coral Springs and walk through a grove of more than 2,000 South Florida Slash Pines shading native plants and more than 30 gopher tortoises.

"It's [about] 40 acres of environmentally sensitive land right in the middle of the city," says Mark Westfall, Coral Springs' environmental coordinator.

The park, purchased by the city in 1996 through a bond program, is only open for guided tours on the first and third Saturdays of the month or by appointment. As you enter through locked gates, sweeping stands of native bracken ferns flank the paved trail. Blooming cardinal bromeliads blaze red and yellow high up in the Slash Pines.

"The lake at Sandy Ridge is one of the most beautiful places in the city. It's filled with fragrant water lily and 2,000 fish," Westfall said. Across the path, there's a stunning bald cypress standing sentry in the wetland. A wax myrtle grows nearby.

"The waxy cuticle of this fragrant plant was used by pioneers to make scented candles," Westfall explains as he cracks open a leaf. "It's special. It's intact habitat that's never been developed."

dchristensen@

tribune.com

Lakeside Sand Pine Preserve

2820 NW 27th Ave., Oakland Park

954-630-4500; OaklandParkFl.org

Hours: 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday-Saturday; closed Sunday and holidays

Blazing Star Preserve

1751 W. Camino Real Road, Boca Raton

561-393-7810, CI.Boca-Raton.fl.us/rec/parks