Natural Communities
Doug Alderson
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Fisheating Creek itself is a high-quality, free-flowing blackwater
stream. The tea-colored water results from the swamps and the
marshes through which the source of its water flows. Extensive
forested wetlands and floodplain marsh buffer the creek for most
of its route. Closer to Lake Okeechobee some areas have been converted
to rangeland for cattle.
Although dry and wet prairies are found on the area, they are
more extensive on the neighboring conservation easement. Prairies
are interspersed with hundreds of small depression marshes. Dry
prairie is characterized by saw palmetto, dwarf live oak, gallberry,
shiny blueberry, yellow-eyed grass, southern bog button, dwarf
St. Johns wort, and wiregrass. Wet prairie is generally found
grading into dry prairie and often on the edges of depression
marshes. Characteristic plants include yellow colic root, maidencane,
toothache grass, bachelor’s buttons, white-topped sedge,
sand cord grass, and beak rushes.
