{"id":10212,"date":"2021-10-28T21:37:17","date_gmt":"2021-10-29T01:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes-2\/?post=apalachicola-lowlands-preserve-a-familys-labor-of"},"modified":"2021-11-05T18:03:45","modified_gmt":"2021-11-05T22:03:45","slug":"apalachicola-lowlands-preserve-a-familys-labor-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/2021-10-28\/apalachicola-lowlands-preserve-a-familys-labor-of\/","title":{"rendered":"Apalachicola Lowlands Preserve: A Family’s Labor of Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Apalachicola Lowlands Preserve is a patch of forest near the Apalachicola River, where a family of conservationists maintains 80 acres full of rare and uniquely Floridian plants. We’ve met the Means family before through a variety of EcoAdventures on Local Routes, but this story explores one of their biggest missions.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

Before today, I had no idea this part of Florida was called the Apalachicola Lowlands. We\u2019re just a few miles from Sumatra, in the central panhandle, on a small preserve surrounded by the Apalachicola National Forest. It\u2019s an area renowned for its wildflowers, in particular its diversity of carnivorous plants<\/a>. It deserves a cool regional name. Today, Ryan Means<\/a> is going to show us that there\u2019s much more here than pitcher plants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ryan is the president of the Coastal Plains Institute<\/a>, which operates the Apalachicola Lowlands Preserve. In 1992, CPI purchased 80 acres nestled within the National Forest. It\u2019s just big enough for us to cover a lot of it on foot, and we\u2019re here at good time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe put a fire down here on April 27th, and here we are five weeks later.\u201d Ryan says. \u201cAnd I am seeing five, ten species of flowering plants in bloom. And more with every week that passes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s five to ten species that he can see from the spot where he\u2019s standing. As with any longleaf ecosystem, there are wildflowers we only notice when we\u2019re right on top of them. Today, we\u2019ll see a few that are rare, and a few not found outside of the central panhandle. And as on any of our adventures with CPI, we\u2019ll see a few reptiles and amphibians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like a lot of our north Florida forests, this was once a timber plantation. Thirty years ago, hardwoods here had become dense between planted rows of slash pine. Restoring it has been a labor of love for the Means family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Coastal Plains Institute\u2019s Apalachicola Lowlands Preserve over almost thirty years. Left, a section of the preserve in 1994, before CPI reintroduced fire to that area (photo provided by Coastal Plains Institute). Right, Ryan Means looks out over a recently burned preserve in June of 2021.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Fire and Family<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen CPI first acquired this property back in 1992,\u201d Ryan says, \u201cjust about the first thing that we did to the property was throw out a match, because it needed a burn. Big time. It was fire suppressed to the Nth Degree.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
Find out about the “we” that Ryan Means is referring to in this story. Click here to read full article on WFSU’s Ecology Blog.<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Apalachicola Lowlands Preserve is a patch of forest near the Apalachicola River, where a family of conservationists maintains 80 acres full of rare and uniquely Floridian plants. We’ve met the Means family before through a variety of EcoAdventures on Local Routes, but this story explores one of their biggest missions. Before today, I had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":10213,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":"","wds_primary_category":0},"categories":[136],"tags":[737,911],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nApalachicola Lowlands Preserve: A Family's Labor of Love - WFSU Local Routes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/2021-10-28\/apalachicola-lowlands-preserve-a-familys-labor-of\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Apalachicola Lowlands Preserve: A Family's Labor of Love - WFSU Local Routes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Apalachicola Lowlands Preserve is a patch of forest near the Apalachicola River, where a family of conservationists maintains 80 acres full of rare and uniquely Floridian plants. 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