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Creek Is Heart Of Tract

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 18, 2008

PLANT CITY - A winding drive down a long dirt road, past grazing cattle and ancient cypress trees, leads to a rushing creek that flows from the Green Swamp in Polk County to the Hillsborough River.

The Environmental Lands Acquisition and Protection Program, with the help of Florida Communities Trust, added the 1,200-acre Blackwater Creek Preserve to its holdings to protect that stream and cypress domes that encircle it.

A portion of the tract, which is still grazed by cattle, is considered an acquisition of convenience, said conservation manager Ross Dickerson. To get the most important part, the county had to purchase the grazing lands, which it leases to a rancher.

Purple pickerel weed cascades across seasonal wetlands, where the sound of crickets nearly drowns out the traffic on nearby State Road 39.

Deep-purple beauty berries poke out above stands of silver palmetto and myrtle bush.

"This truly is pristine pine flatwoods and riverine habitat," Dickerson said, standing near the creek bank, with tall slash pines towering a hundred feet above him.

Hiking trails are marked throughout the property, running past wetlands where endangered wood storks search for fish and, in winter, hooded mergansers and wood ducks stop in for the season.

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