Florida peninsula inland scrub
The Florida peninsula inland scrub is a dry shrubland found on the Florida peninsula. The largest remaining areas are near the Ocala National Forest and around the Lake Wales Ridge National Wildlife Refuge. The Archbold Biological Station near Lake Placid has about 20 square kilometers of scrub and supports research on it.
The scrub grows on north–south sand ridges created by ancient dunes. The soil is a quartz-based entisol with little organic matter, silt, or clay. Because the sandy soil doesn’t hold moisture well, the ecosystem feels arid.
Plants are mainly xerophytic shrubs, especially oaks, with occasional pine trees. The understory is often sparse or absent, leaving bare ground. The typical pine is the sand pine. Oaks include Chapman oak, sand live oak, myrtle oak, and the endemic Inopina oak.
Other shrubs are rusty staggerbush, saw palmetto, sandhill-rosemary, scrub holly, scrub olive, scrub pawpaw, silk bay, Adam’s needle, and eastern prickly pear.
Endangered plants in the scrub include Florida golden aster, Ashe’s savory, pygmy fringetree, sandlace, scrub plum, short-leaved false rosemary, etonia rosemary, yellow scrub balm, scrub beargrass, scrub blazingstar, scrub lupine, and scrub morning glory.
Notable animals are the Florida scrub jay, Florida mouse, sand skink, bluetail mole skink, Florida scrub lizard, and Florida worm lizard.
This community is often next to Florida longleaf pine sandhills, which look quite different.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 09:46 (CET).