Region: Southern Palm Beach County
Size: 54 acres
Hours: Daily from sunrise to sunset
Location:
3400 S. Seacrest Boulevard, Boynton Beach, FL 33435 (not a mailing address). The entrance is located on the east side of Seacrest Boulevard, approximately two miles south of Woolbright Road.
Public Use Facilities:
Public use facilities include a parking area for ten cars and two buses, a bicycle rack, a kiosk with educational exhibits, an accessible nature trail, and a natural-surface hiking trail. There are no restroom facilities or drinking water on the natural area.
Site Information:
The natural area contains two native Florida ecosystems: scrub and scrubby flatwoods, which support a large population of gopher tortoises. The natural area was once part of a large ridge of scrub habitat in eastern Palm Beach County, but now is an isolated remnant surrounded by residential communities. Based on maps and aerial photographs, the site was used for the cultivation of pineapples and fruit trees in the early 1900s. It was purchased by Palm Beach County in 1994. State Preservation 2000 matching funds were provided by the Florida Communities Trust for the acquisition of the site. The City of Boynton Beach also contributed matching funds for the acquisition. The natural area is managed by the County with the assistance of the City of Boynton Beach.
Plants:
Plant species observed on the site include jeweled blue-eyed grass, whitemouth dayflower, nodding pinweed, coastalplain honeycombhead, pricklypear, corkscrew threeawn, coastal sandbur, sand pine, scrub palmetto, and giant airplant.
Wildlife:
Animal species observed on the site include Carolina wolf spider, ruddy daggerwing, blue dasher, eastern glass lizard, gopher tortoise, Cooper's hawk, American kestrel, brown thrasher, northern mockingbird, and eastern gray squirrel.
Links:
Coastal
