Welcome to SGI Plants! (Version 24.07)

St George Island is a 28-mile long barrier island in the Florida Panhandle near the town of Appachicola. It is one of a series of barrier islands separating Appalachicola Bay from the Gulf of Mexico that also includes Cape St. George Island, St. Vincent Island, and Dog Island. Unlike much of the Florida coast, St. George suffers only moderately from over-development; consisting of mostly single-family beach-houses, small shops and restaurants, and no high-rises, it provides a delightful vacation spot for Nature lovers. The eastern third of the island is occupied by Dr. Julian G. Bruce St. George Island State Park with 9 miles of undeveloped Gulf shoreline and bayfront. To the west, Cape St. George State Reserve protects an additional 9 miles of pristine beach and wilderness.

Principal habitats include beaches and foredunes, interdunal swales with ponds and marshes, older interior dune areas with oak scrublands and slash pine forests, and salt and brackish marshes. Subject to hurricanes and tropical storms, the area is vulnerable to erosion as a result of sea level rise. The climate is humid, with mild winters, hot, 'muggy' summers, and roughly 57 inches (145 cm) of rainfall annually.

This gallery includes many of the wild-growing plants commonly encountered on the beaches, dunes, marshes, and pine forests of St. George island and nearby areas on the mainland immediately across the bay. Most of the photos are from various locations on St. George Island, many from St George Island State Park. A few photos were taken accross the Bay in East Point or in Apalachicola. Botanical nomenclature follows The Flora of North America (FNA 1993+) series where possible and USDA PLANTS for groups not yet published in FNA. Family circumscriptions follow the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification (APG 1998, 2003, 2009, 2016). Wunderlin (1997) and Weakley et al (2023) were among the many additional sources consulted.

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image of Ipomoea imperati image of Physalis angustifolia image of Sabatia stellaris