440 acres adjacent to the Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory, University of Florida/IFAS
Get trail maps and information about the Oslo Riverfront Conservation Area — and other Indian River County conservation lands — with Indian River County’s new Map App. Click here to check it out.
Nature does nothing uselessly — Aristotle
Nature is everywhere. Enjoy exploring the puzzles & complexities of nature at the Oslo Riverfront Conservation Area & on this website. You will find some of the plants, insects, and animals that you see here in your yard, along the roadsides, and elsewhere.
Enjoy nature everywhere.
The Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory (FMEL) will offer its twenty-fourth Volunteer Nature Stewardship Class for the Oslo Riverfront Conservation Area (ORCA) in 2023, when covid concerns hopefully will have diminished. It will provide a foundation for understanding — and enjoying — the common habitats of Indian River County and what you may find in your yard. Field activities definitely will be included.
Class participants are asked to “volunteer back” and share what they have learned at the ORCA, another nature preserve, a nature center, or in another venue. You craft how and where you “volunteer back”.
You can check out the 2020 schedule: 2020 FMEL Volunteer Class Schedule
Email Janice Broda at jbroda@ufl.edu if you are interested in joining a nature walk at ORCA.
Giant leather fern (Acrostichum danaeifolium) is the largest fern in North America. Its fronds can grow to be 15′ tall. When we visited Osprey Aces Stormwater Park and Nature Preserve, we saw giant leather fern growing in the rocks on…
Australian umbrella tree (Heptapleurum actinophyllum), shown above at Osprey Acres Stormwater Park and Nature Preserve, is terribly invasive in south Florida. For years, most every “cookie-cutter” landscape included an Australian umbrella tree, most usually planted under the eveas of the…
On our visit to Osprey Acres Stormwater Park and Nature Preserve on 4/10/2022, the coralberry (Ardisia crenata) was full of fruit … Its coral-red fruits are eaten and spread by birds. Birds easily could transport ready-to-go seeds to the nearby…
Hollies, we expect, to have red berries at Christmas-time. Gallberry (Ilex glabra) is a holly that has black fruits. The fruits often persist throughout the winter and into spring. Ultimately, they are eaten by migratory birds. When we visited Osprey…
Resurrection fern (Pleopeltis michauxiana) is a desiccation tolerant plant. During dry times, each resurrection fern frond “curls up” on itself exposing the underside of the frond which is covered with roundish (peltate) scales. These scales help to slow dehydration and…
As a few of us lingered at the end of our walk at Coastal Oaks Preserve, a somewhat tattered great southern white butterfly (Ascia monuste) was sipping nectar from two nearby native plants, oakleaf fleabane (Erigeron quercifoliius) … … and…
Virginia pepperweed (Lepidium virginicum) was lush and lovely at the Coastal Oaks Preserve when we visited on 2/26/2022. Native from southern Canada through most of the U.S. to central America, this wildflower can be weedy elsewhere and in its native…
Indian River County (IRC) voters elected to tax themselves to buy conservation lands in 1992 and 2004. Concurrently, the group that is now the Indian River Land Trust (IRLT) worked to purchase additional conservation lands with private donations. Fortunately, the…
Saltbush (Baccharis halimifolia) didn’t show off much this fall, perhaps due to the lack of rainfall this summer. Check out its female fall show below in a photo below taken at the Indian River Lagoon Greenway last year … This…
Coralbean (Erythrina herbacea) is just beginning to flower on Orchid Island. Flowering tends to be later inland at places like the Oslo Riverfront Conservation Area. Coralbean often grows in the midst of saw palmetto (Serenoa repens) and hammock plants, reaching…
Established by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1903, Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge (PINWR) is the precedent setting first U.S. national wildlife refuge. Over the years it has has been expanded from its original size. Local citrus farmer and PINWR advocate…
Gumbo limbo (Bursera simarouba) are burly big trees, usually multi-trunked. Only a few are found at the Oslo Riverfront Conservation Area, youngish trees “seeded” by birds after the Christmas freeze of 1989 that brought bone-chilling temperatures well below freezing and…
Enjoy the Oslo Riverfront Conservation Area 