Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park, the 12 hour tour.

    I recently found out about a wildflower walk with Roger Hammer and Craig Huegel to benefit the Friends of Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park. This sounded interesting so I signed up for the afternoon walk, I knew I couldn't get up there in time for the morning walk. They also offered a swamp buggy ride so I signed up for that too.  For some reason, I never even considered camping out there the night before to make the early walk. Probably my aversion to heading out into Friday rush hour traffic to begin a weekend.
 Google maps routed me up US 27 and around the east side of Lake Okeechobee and estimated almost three hours to get to the park. Checking mileage afterward, I found that the route west of the Lake is actually longer.

 After leaving US27 at Okeetanta onto a two lane side road, I drove through Belle Glade, Pahokee, and Canal Point. Thinking all along, if this dike/levee fails these are the people who will lose their homes. There are houses with the levee seemingly right at their back yards. I passed Port Mayaca and Up the Grove Beach. As I was rushing to make it to the park by 1:15 p.m. to catch the wildflower walk I could not stop and take photos. At Port Mayaca, the Kanner Highway heads off to the east and 98 passes over the exit and you can actually see the vast expanse of Lake Okeechobee from this overpass. I left 98 at Up the Grove Beach and crossed over to 710 to pass through the city of Okeechobee.  Catching 98 again to head to Basinger, near the Florida Trail.
 There the terrain changed, it looks somewhat like it does along US 27 south of Fisheating creek but not so many oak hammocks. Running to the horizon is grass, beef cattle, and tall sabal palms in clumps.   I pass the entrance to Dixie Ranch 'since 1918' it says on the sign. I found that hard to imagine living on a ranch, probably four or five generations raising cattle in Florida.                 

     With all the small towns and slow speed limit zones I passed through, I knew it would take me every bit of three hours to get there. The instructions indicated I would have to drive the final five miles on a dirt road with a 25 mph speed limit due to wildlife. The park entrance day fee is four dollars and I followed the directions and put it in the 'iron ranger'. I passed more cows and a couple of donkeys heading into the park. Here in the park, the vegetation changed, the grasses are taller and in colored bands seeming to parallel the road. I found it hard to imagine having to travel across this either on foot or horseback as the natives and pioneers did.

As I got near the park office I saw this Crested Caracara with a couple of Black vultures on the road, the Caracara was scratching in the roadside dirt like a chicken trying to find something. I was running late but I had to try to get a shot.  The tour group was leaving as I got there, but the organizers  insisted I had to go as I had come so far, and we got in a truck and caught up with the tour before they went off-road. I got a spot on a hay bale up in the bed of the pickup that was pulling the trailer where everyone else was riding sitting on hay bales. From this position I had a higher vantage point to see that the fields were full of flowers.

 The road taken for the tour is called the Audubon trail, currently  wet, muddy and in some places a flooded track.  Eastern meadowlarks flushed as we passed and I saw a snake's tail as it was washed away from the truck passing through the water. We all climbed out and Roger and Craig started pointing out plants and flowers. Immediately we saw the pine lilies,

Pine lily

 a white rose gentian, Sabatia brevifolia, Liatris species, Florida paintbrush, and more. 

Sabatia brevifolia Shortleafed rose gentian

Lobelia glandulosa Glade Lobelia

Liatris sp.

Polygala rugelii Yellow milkwort

 Polygala, Milkworts were everywhere, KPPSP lists 8 species of Polygala, I think I saw four.  

Vanilla leaf

Vanilla leaf Carpheforus odoratissimus var. subtropicanus

This was our second stop along the trail, the Vanilla leaf plants, this plant really smells like vanilla. They were scattered all among the saw palmetto here. Dark splashes of purple amongst the green.

The park provides a plant list and a butterfly list for visitors. The KPPSP has nearly 54,000 acres with 100 miles of trails for hiking, backpacking (there are only two remote backpack campsites) and horseback riding (camping facilities with paddocks) it looks like there will be more to explore on my next trip.