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Florida Land Steward

Florida Land Steward

Temperate Hardwood Forests

Temperate hardwood forests, or hammocks as they are often called in Florida, occur along the coastal plain of the southeastern U.S. from the Carolinas to eastern Texas.  Hammocks are typically narrow bands of vegetation, only a few hundred meters wide, confined to slopes between upland sandhill/clayhill pinelands and bottomland forests.  In Florida, the largest temperate hardwood communities occur near Brooksville, Gainesville, and Ocala.

In North Florida, mixed evergreen-deciduous hammocks contain the largest numbers of tree and shrub species per unit area in the continental U.S.

In South Florida, hammocks have a greater percentage of evergreen trees, primarily tropical species; as well as the largest numbers of epiphytic ferns, bromeliads, and orchids in the continental U.S.