Native Plant Communities

High pine is a temperate to peninsular climate ecosystem on hilltops and gentle slopes. It is characterized by excessively drained soils (if sand, the community is sandhill; if clayey, clayhill).

High pine is a pyrophytic plant community with a natural fire frequency of 2-5 years. It typically has widely spaced longleaf pine and/or turkey oak with wiregrass understory. Absence of pines is usually due to past management, especially logging, and usually results in a sandhill dominated by xeric oaks, especially turkey oak. Fire suppression can result in a shift toward scrubby vegetation - a so-called scrubby sandhill.

Florida high pine is noted for a high level of plant endemism (found only in Florida).  Relatively few rare species are restricted to high pine.  Three that use high pine as habitat include Warea amplexifolia and pigeon wing (Clitoria fragrans) which are found in the sanshills of the central Florida ridges and zigzag silkgrass (Pityopsis flexuosa) found in the eastern panhandle.  All three are endemic.

Longleaf pine once dominated the coastal plain of the southeastern US.  Today, only 2-3 percent, usually highly disturbed, of the original exists.  Florida has most of the high-quality longleaf pine dominated forests that remain and almost all of the old growth forests.   Florida's longleaf pine florests include High Pine and relatively dry Pine Flatwoods.  The longleaf pine dominated in the Blackwater River State Forest and  on Eglin Air Force Base is the biggest High Pine example of old growth remaining.  High Pine in varying degrees of condition occur throughout North Florida and in peninsular Florida down to about Sarasota and Highlands counties.  

Good places to explore high quality High Pine are Blackwater River State Forest, Eglin Air Force Base (permit needed), Gold Head Branch State Park, Ocala National Forest, Wekiva Springs State Park, parts of the Citrus Tract of the Withlacoochee River State Forest, and near Leon Sinks in Apalachicola National Forest.