Your hike so far has been through a dark, dense hammock, a mix of laurel oaks, cabbage palms, strangler figs and few slash pines off to the side, but eventually the trail branches off and you encounter an overlook on a wet prairie. You might find a panther lurking about, but probably not. Panthers are habitat specialists and, while one might pass through the prairie, the oak hammocks and pine flatwoods are where they're more likely to hang out, waiting to ambush a white-tailed deer, a feral hog or some other smaller mammal. In the summer and fall, you'll find the lovely but unromantically named oppositeleaf spotflower, thickleaf petunia, glade lobelia, goldenrods, rosey camphorweed blooming in the vicinity of overlook. NEXT PHOTO.
