Golden Aster: The Little Yellow Flower that Stopped a Subdivision
- Steven Almeda
- Nov 17, 2019
- 2 min read
The Florida Golden Aster is a tiny yellow flower that you've probably never heard of. In fact, if you live in the Tampa Bay Area, you may have hiked right over it - mistaking it for a weed.
But this flower is so rare and so special that it stopped a subdivision mid-build and inspired the creation of the Golden Aster Scrub Nature Preserve in 1995. If it weren't for these conservation efforts, this golden gem would likely have been altogether eradicated.
Having grown up in this area, I was familiar with this flower and often wandered among its tentacle-like vines as a child at the Rhodine Scrub Preserve. It occurs in open areas in scrub habits - especially among sand pines in white sandy areas. The white white siliceous sand was once part of an ancient dune system in the area.
According to a federal registrar published by the Fish and Wildlife Service, much of the area's Golden Aster had already been extirpated by urban development by 1986. At that time, the two largest remaining sites were in residential subdivisions where streets and utilities already existed, and where many houses had already been built. When the flower was discovered again in the 90s during the development of the Shadow Run subdivision in Riverview, construction stopped immediately.
For this flower is small but mighty.
Since then, some recovery and reintroduction efforts have been successful. The Aster was successfully reintroduced to Fort Desoto County Park from wild-collected seeds.
If you're looking for some cool trails to hike where you can see this beautiful flower, I recommend the 1,181-acre Golden Aster Scrub Nature Preserve (includes scrub habitats surrounded by pine flatwoods and pockets of wet prairie, hardwood swamp, and freshwater marsh), and the Rhodine Scrub Preserve and Trails, which you have to access through Stephan Wortham Park.
Directions to access: Park next to playground at Stephan Wortham Park, follow the trail to where the red blazes start, that's the beginning of the red blaze loop, the shorter of the two, then proceed to the blue blaze trail that takes you to the East side perimeter trail & loop back.
You can learn more about the efforts to maintain Golden Aster populations in Hillsborough County here: https://www.hillsboroughcounty.org/library/hillsborough/media-center/documents/conservation-and-regional-parks/master-plans/golden-aster-scrub-management-plan.pdf?la=en&hash=E46B95FBBF060AFB00D77966372CF4B990BCF1BF
Comments