The cache is located in the Yamato Scrub Natural Area -
Size: 217 acres
Hours: Daily from sunrise to sunset
Location:
The entrance is located on the north side of Clint Moore Road, 0.4 mile east of Congress Avenue.
Public Use Facilities:
Site facilities include a parking area for ten cars and two buses, a bicycle rack, an accessible portable toilet, a kiosk with educational exhibits, an accessible nature trail, and natural-surface hiking trails. There is no drinking water on the natural area.
Site Information:
The natural area is the southernmost large scrub on the southeastern coast of Florida. It contains five native Florida ecosystems: scrub, scrubby flatwoods, mesic flatwoods, mesic hammock, and basin marsh. More than 75,000 cubic yards of sand were removed from an area that was formerly a basin marsh to create two wetlands - a shallow-water marsh and a deep-water marsh. The sand was used to repair beaches at Singer Island and Lantana that were damaged by Hurricane Wilma. Volunteers planted over 34,000 native wetland and upland plants in and around the created marshes over a four-year period. One hundred cabbage palms relocated from another natural area that was undergoing restoration were planted in the parking lot area. Volunteers then planted more than 800 native upland plants in that area prior to the opening of the public use facilities. The County and the City of Boca Raton jointly own a 10-acre tract that was purchased in 1994. Both contributed funds for the acquisition of the other tract in 1997. State Preservation 2000 matching funds were provided for that acquisition through the Conservation and Recreation Lands Program. The larger tract is owned by the State of Florida and leased to the County for management. The County manages the natural area with the assistance of the City of Boca Raton.
Plants:
Plant species observed on the site include Spanish moss, Florida scrub roseling, hog plum, possum grape, manyspike flatsedge, firebush, Indian pipe, dwarf live oak, skyblue lupine, and sand cordgrass.
Wildlife:
Animals observed on the site include ox beetle, green lacewing, cicada, common buckeye, barking treefrog, Florida scrub lizard, spotted sandpiper, prairie warbler, red-tailed hawk, and eastern mole.