Highland Hammock State Park

We took the tram tour of Highland Hammock State Park today.  We couldn't have picked a better day.  The temperature was around 75 degrees with a warm breeze - so not hot enough to be uncomfortable, but warm enough that lots of alligators and turtles were out sunning themselves. 

While no Florida tour is complete without lots of alligators to photograph, this tour gave us lots of information about other animals and birds in the park, the history of the park, and identification of trees, shrubs, and flowers as well. It is the first Florida State Park, and many of the buildings, bridges, and trails were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the 1930's.

This 960 year old oak tree is an example of the CCC creativity.  They realized that deciduous trees decay from the core out and they tried a new method of preserving seven trees in the park.  First they created an opening into the center of the tree large enough for a small man to enter the core of the tree and remove all of the rot from the center of the tree and the large branches. Then the cleaned area was sprayed with antifungal solution.  To complete the process, the entire cored area was filled with concrete.  Many years later a large treated branch blew off in a severe windstorm and the  branch lying to the side of the tree is mostly concrete.  New branches continue to sprout from the original tree.

There are several complete eco-systems within the park - cypress swamps give way to pine forests, and some areas are grassy prairie, others are areas of mostly saw palmetto.

The park is constantly working to remove invasive species such as feral pigs, armadillos, and other animals and water hyacinth and other plants.  So far they haven't found any evidence of pythons, but they are vigilantly looking for any signs of them as they have been found quite close to the park.