VASCULAR PLANTS OF FORT DESOTO PARK, PINELLAS COUNTY, FLORIDA

Abstract

Fort DeSoto Park, administered by the Pinellas County Parks Department, consists of five islands or sand keys at the mouth of Tampa Bay and the south end of Boca Ciega Bay. The islands total about 900 acres with more than seven miles of waterfront, including three miles of sandy swimming beaches. Also, many camping sites in a subtropical hammock on two of the keys and additional picnic areas make the park a popular recreational site. This local botanical paradise is vegetated by subtropical hammocks, mixed slash-pine-Florida-rosemary scrub, sandy beaches, dunes, sand-shell plateaus, mangrove thickets, tidal salinas, fringing salt marshes, and submarine sea-grass meadows in the shallow bay waters. The annotated checklist of vascular plants, prepared originally for the use of park personnel and visitors, is based upon nearly 500 collections made by the author on nine or ten trips and other collections made by Olga Lakela and her associates at the University of South Florida, Tampa. Listed are 290 species (33 of them apparently introduced) belonging to 88 families (4 introduced) and 225 genera (26 introduced). Also listed in APPENDIX 1 are 45 additional species, 9 of them introduced, collected on adjacent keys and shores of Boca Ciega Bay and which might be expected also in the Park.