Ocala National Forest in Marion County, Florida

Photograph: Farles Prairie, Ocala National Forest.jpg by Sandra Friend · Public domain · Restored from the credited Wikimedia Commons file, normalized to the consistent attraction-card frame and converted to WebP by 1stFlorida.com. Portrait originals retain their complete composition over a softly blurred extension of the same photograph.

Marion County attraction

Ocala National Forest

Marion County · Central Florida

Six hundred and seven square miles beginning three miles east of Ocala, established in 1908 and the oldest national forest east of the Mississippi River.

QUESTIONS THAT NAME THIS PLACE

Are There Bears in Florida?

ABOUT THIS PLACE

It is also the southernmost in the continental United States, and what it protects is not the pine flatwoods most of Florida is covered in. Roughly two hundred thousand acres of it is the Big Scrub, the largest stand of sand pine anywhere in the world, growing on old dune sand so dry and poor that almost nothing else will take. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings wrote about this country and described the scrub itself as having no human habitation in it. More than six hundred lakes and ponds lie scattered through the forest, four areas are designated wilderness, and the springs at Juniper, Alexander, Silver Glen and Salt Springs are among the clearest in the state. The Florida National Scenic Trail runs the length of it. Florida's densest population of black bears lives here, along with manatees in the spring runs and alligators. The Navy drops close to twenty thousand bombs a year on the Pinecastle range inside the forest, which is worth knowing before camping nearby

GETTING THERE

Get Directions ↗Official place website ↗

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