Hernando County Preserves: Cypress Lake Preserve
Jim King, Hernando County Conservation Lands Specialist, oversees more than 1000 acres of Hernando County environmentally sensitive lands. His main purpose is to continue to provide residents of Hernando County and other nature enthusiasts a beautiful place for hiking, biking, birding as well as maintaining a healthy ecosystem within the preserves
The beautiful 331 acres in Ridge Manor was scheduled to be a travel trailer park, however the citizens insisted that this piece of property was too special and nominated it for purchase under the environmentally sensitive land program. It was actually the first property the county ever purchased with the Florida Forever Program.
What makes this place special is the mixture of wetlands and uplands, but King described some challenges to restore the ecosystem within these 331 acres at Cypress Lake.
Most of this area is filled with native oak trees. Surprisingly King said, “They don’t belong here. There should be a lot more longleaf pine,” He continued, “It is a beautiful shaded Oak Hammock; however it’s not biologically productive, which the native plants for this community and groundcovers struggle to survive. Wire grass should be the dominating ground cover in this community,” King explained.
Wire grass loves fire; most of the seasons for lightning fires are in April, May and June. Those fires would burn the dead grasses and oak seedlings, fertilize everything with the nutrients the ash puts back into the soil and rejuvenate the system every two to three years.
Many factors determine the type of plants that grow in an area. These factors include soil type, hydrology, topography and fire regime. As far as the Coastal areas, you factor in exposure, salt, wind and tropical systems.
“This is sandhill, there is like four one hundredths of one percent of the sandhill community in the southeast of the United States left. It used to extend from South Florida, to the Piedmont in North Carolina and into east Texas; it was the dominant vegetation community in that area,” King said.
Cypress Lake has only had one prescribed burn and the county is readying for another. King explained that after the burn takes place, the preserve will grow stronger, and sometimes when walking through after a burn you will find things that may have been hidden for decades. “Every time you burn you find different things,” King said.
Within the preserve there are remains of what may have been an old railroad embankment from when they logged out the cypress.
“We talked about what we could do to make our preserves more attractive to the public and one idea was placing interpretation signs along the trail,” King said.
Cypress Lake Preserve has some beautiful ponds and one particular pond has a border of rock outcroppings and limestone chert deposits which Native Americans would use to make tools. Gorgeous native lilies grow in the pond where herons and red-shouldered hawks search for fish. We were able to witness two beautiful hawks, a swallow-tailed kite and a white heron in search of a meal.
The Florida trail curves along the Cypress Lake Preserve. The point where the trail curves on the edge of the cypress bank is breathtaking. “We are talking about… adding some additional benches [here],” said King. Beautiful green duckweed blanket the water, hugging the base of the these massive cypress trees.
King has plans to begin regenerating the longleaf pine population with a volunteer work day in the fall. Every volunteer will get a handful of longleaf pine saplings and plant them around the preserve.
“These places are special and they belong to them (residents of Hernando County) they should come and enjoy (these preserves), and they need to use them and enjoy them,” King expressed.
For more information about Hernando County Preserves, please check out the website links below.
Fun Fact in 1922 US HWY 301 ran through the eastern edge of the Cypress Lake Preserve, but by 1927 301 was rerouted and a truncated spur was all that was left.
Links:
http://www.hernandocounty.us/plan/ESL/preserves/
http://dep.state.fl.us/lands/fl_forever.htm
Remember… when you venture out please be careful and aware of wildlife surroundings. Always have a backpack with necessities, such as water, bug spray, medicine, snacks, and charged cell phone for example. Never go alone or go off the trail unless you are with an experienced hiker. Please respect these areas and don’t leave trash behind. As always, you venture, explore, hike and/or dive at your own risk.