Literally 500
yards from my home in Venice is the real jewel of all of the many Sarasota’s
parks and reserves, the Carlton Reserve. Unfortunately for me (but not the Reserve) I
would have to wade across the Myaka River to get there. So instead, this
morning, I decided to drive the 5 miles to get there via the Border Road Bridge. What makes the Reserve so attractive is not
its large size, which at 25,000 acres puts it just smaller than the abutting
28,000 acre Myaka River State Park, but that it is still undiscovered. It’s
located at the dead end of Border Road near some cattle and horse ranches and
small homes. You have to target Carlton as a destination.
I parked in
the small sandy parking lot near the interpretive kiosk and picked up a map. No
other cars were present. There is no fee. I carried my normal hiking gear: binoculars,
camera, water, bug spray, a snack, and my GPS/i-Phone. I have over 80 miles of
trails to choose from, and if I include the connecting Myaka River State Park
trails, there are hundreds of miles of trail options. Camping is allowed as
well as biking and horse back riding.
I chose as a destination the old turpentine
camp, where 100 years ago, near slave labor harvested pine resin from the plentiful
Longleaf Pine forests. Round trip for me would be about 6 miles. The trails are
well marked with numbers at intersections and colored markers on the more
popular trails.
A small
pavilion, toilets, a log cabin and about 20 tent camp sites mark the “Park
Area” of the Reserve. Once past this relative civilized area, I headed into the
wild on a narrow grassy trail, called the “red” trail. Within minutes a large
black pig appeared 100 feet ahead! I wasn’t ready. By the time I got my camera
out, he was off the trail into the thick underbrush. But this was not to be the
last pig of the day.
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Carlton Pavillion
|
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| Carlton Visitor Center |
It was after
9 am, so there was little action in the birding category. So Instead of looking up, I looked closely at
the ground around me. At the edge of the trail, I noticed a variety of
wildflowers, some less than 1/8 inch, all struggling with the weeds and grasses
to put forth their colorful faces.
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| Clustered Rock-Rose |
It is April, when plants and flowers are
reviving themselves from the relative cold of winter. I should have no trouble
finding subjects to shoot. So I decided today to concentrate on these
beautiful, delicate and short-lived plants, and photograph, and identify as
many as possible. Photographing plants is much easier than animals. They don’t
run from you, you can get as close as you want, and you can take as many shots
as you want. So I slowed my pace considerably and felt my excitement growing at
each turn of the trail, as I spotted and shot each new species.
The trails I
picked meandered through two distinct habitats: Relatively dry pine flatlands,
and Palm and Oak lowlands. The sunny openness of the pines provided the more
fertile hunting ground.
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| Pine Flatlands Trail |
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| Oak Palm Lowlands |
My method as
usual is to take a lot of shots of each species I encounter. Then at home, I
load them onto the pc, pick the best ones of each, and enlarge and crop if
necessary. Then I attempt to ID them from the Audubon Field Guide to Florida
or the internet.
By the time
I got to the Turpentine Camp, I had at least 15 different species safely in my
camera. The camp itself was only a clearing in the scrub, with a few 200 year
old oaks, providing shade. Any
outbuildings or artifacts had long since disappeared.
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| Turpentine Camp |
On the
return trip via the power line trail, I came across a wild boar! He was in a
metal cage trap, not at all happy at the situation. Carlton contracts a
licensed trapper to remove feral pigs from the reserve. They are sold to game
farms or, if sick or injured, are euthanized. A few find there way to the
dinner tables of local Floridians.
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| Caught |
By the time
I returned to my parked car, I had captured a total of 27 wildflower species. Identifying
them however proved to be a lot harder than I expected. So to help me, I picked up a copy of Audubon
Field Guide to Wildflowers at the local book store.
All
wildflowers are members of the phylum Angiosperms, which include all flowering
plants and trees. But Florida alone is home to over 4000 species of wildflowers!
After considerable effort, I was able to
ID the 13 listed below.
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| Common Blue Hearts |
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| Common Tickseed |
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| Daisy Fleabane |
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| Horrible Thistle |
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| Lance-Leaved Arrowhead |
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| Pickerelweed |
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| Pineweed |
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| White-Topped Sedge |
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| Yellow Wood Sorel |
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| Yellow Bachelor's Button |
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| Common Beggar Tick |
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| Poison Hemlock |
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| Pipewort |
The use of
the “macro” mode on my camera allows me to get very close to the subjects (within
one inch). The resulting bigger-than-life images reveal the detail, beauty and complexity of
these wildflowers which I had previously been unappreciative of. I know I have
truly only scratched the surface of Florida wildflowers. But now, whenever I'm out on a trail, I’ll have
another facet of this wonderful Florida biosphere to explore.
