FNAI- Guide to the Natural Communities of Florida: 2010 Edition Shell Mound – 1 Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge Photo by Kimberely Gulledge

Description: Shell mounds are small hills, usually in coastal locations, composed entirely of shells (clams, oysters, whelks) discarded by generations of Native Americans which support an assemblage of calciphilic plant species. Archeological evidence indicates they were occupied at the time Europeans first landed in Florida. Several are now surrounded by mangroves, evidence that they were built when sea level was lower than today. Originally there were many such shell mounds along coastal lagoons and at the mouths of rivers (and even inland along the St. Johns River), but most were destroyed for road building in the early part of the last century (Small 1929; Stalter and Kincaid 2004). A rich calcareous soil develops on the deposited shells which supports a diverse hardwood forest on undisturbed mounds. Central Florida mounds are often characterized by tropical species occurring north of their normal range. On Turtle Mound at Canaveral National Seashore in Volusia County tropical trees such as white stopper (Eugenia axillaris), sea torchwood (Amyris elemifera), wild lime (Zanthoxylum fagara), false mastic (Sideroxylon foetidissimum), inkwood (Exothea paniculata), and lancewoo