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TO: Board of County DATE: May 18, 1987 FILE:
<br />Commissioners
<br />SUBJECT: Acquisition of Florida
<br />Scrub
<br />FROM: Countye'(,', mmissioner REFERENCES:
<br />The. Florida Scrub
<br />The Florida scrub is our most misunderstood habitat. Few
<br />people appreciate the value of an ecological niche that has
<br />persisted on the same hot, dry, infertile sites for over a
<br />million years. (Cypress swamps are only 5000 years, old, yet
<br />people who cherish them will drive right past a scrub and never
<br />notice it.) Once you understood the scrub, you treasure it.
<br />Scrubs are found on high old dune formations with "sugar"
<br />sand soils, technically known as St. Lucie Fine Sand, and in our
<br />area occurring on coastal dune systems and along US#1 where the
<br />sea formed a beach a million years ago during Pleistocene times.
<br />These sites were the refuges for land species when the lower
<br />parts of Florida were covered by the sea. Some of these isolated
<br />species evolved to be specially adapted to the harsh scrub
<br />environment, and are now found nowhere else.
<br />For this reason, 30 plants and 12 animals are endemic
<br />(confined) to the scrub. These plants and animals have had to
<br />adapt to heat, drought and fire, to withstand the glare from the
<br />white sand and the lack of organic matter in the soil because of
<br />the high percolation rate of the sand. Many of the plants have
<br />waxy leaves to resist drying. Some have a lattice of sines that
<br />creates a shady mini -environment. Some of them are deep-rooted,
<br />reaching below the loose sand mulch to moisture below.
<br />The dominant plants are the scrub pine tree and the scrub
<br />hickory. Characteristic shrubs are rosemary, sand live oak,
<br />myrtle oak, and Chapman's oak. Gopher apple, silk bay, prickly
<br />pear, saw palmetto, scrub palmetto, scrub holly, wild olive, hog
<br />plum and staggerbush are usually the other components, plus a
<br />ground cover that includes deer moss and Florida; bluestem.
<br />Bromeliads and lichens are common on the oaks, and the understory
<br />often supports orange tangles of the parasitic love vine.
<br />The scrub is home to spotted skunk, cottontail, old -field
<br />mouse, eastern mole, white -eyed towhee, mockingbird, loggerhead
<br />shrike, ground dove, coachwhip, six -lined racerunner, oak toad,
<br />gopher frog, and whip scorpion.
<br />Endemic species that largely depend on sand scrub are the
<br />Florida mouse, Florida scrub jay, Florida scrub lizard, sand
<br />skink, blue -tailed mole skink, short -tailed snake, red widow
<br />spider, scrub wolf spider, and four grasshopper species. The
<br />threatened indigo snake and gopher tortoise also use scrub.
<br />In some scrub areas the lichen ground cover is so delicate
<br />that people walking through should detour around it.
<br />Scrub occurs on high ground that is prime development land
<br />and any parcel that is not intentionally preserved should be
<br />considered endangered.
<br />MAY 19 1987
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<br />BOOK 'S PAUE374
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