Sandra Friend

Florida's landscape is a marvel of diversity, ranging from temperate Appalachian-style forests to tangled tropical jungles. And the broad range of habitats and wildlife found here are surpassed only by Hawaii and California. Trails pass through desert-like scrub islands, jungle-like hydric hammocks, and deep, dark bayous. Footpaths range through salt marshes, river floodplains, and along coastal dunes and beaches. Florida has the world's only Everglades, and the delightful landforms of karst--disappearing lakes and streams, yawning sinkholes lush with ferns, and the world's largest concentration of first-magnitude springs. And more than 1,200 contiguous miles of the Florida National Scenic Trail stretch from the beaches of Pensacola, at the western edge of the Panhandle, to the Big Cypress Swamp in the Everglades.