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 January 2021. How this course will be offered – live, virtual, or some combo thereof – remains uncertain due to coronavirus.
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 will be asked to “volunteer back” and share what they have learned at the ORCA, another nature preserve, a nature center, or 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 to be notified by email when registration will open for the 2021 class.
Loment is botanical term for a string of seeds that separate on some species of plants in the pea family, Fabaceae. Most folks are not fond of loments, but they are a very effective dispersal mechanism. At the Oslo Riverfront…
European honeybees (Apis mellifera), native bees, and other pollinators love common begarticks (Bidens alba). This native but weedy annual wildflower grows throughout the Oslo Riverfront Conservation Area (ORCA) in sunny disturbed spots. A member of the daisy family, Asteraceae, common…
The myrsine trees near the coastal wetlands at the Oslo Riverfront Conservation Area (ORCA) were full of flowers and fruits when a small group of volunteers from the Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory Volunteer Nature Stewardship program took a walk there…
At a quick glance it looks like a white paint ball blotch, but it is not. With its white brightness, wreath lichen (Cryptothecia striata) stands out on the trunks of lancewood (Nectandra coriacea) on the east-west trail that leads away…
Marylou Rethman (Class of 2009) brought a cutting of what she hoped was native marlberry (Ardisia escallonioides) but suspected that it might not be. Sure enough, it was shoebutton ardisia (Ardisia elliptica), a plant so invasive that it is on…
Whisk fern (Psilotum nudum) is on infrequently found growing at the Oslo Riverfront Conservation Area (ORCA), usually as an epiphyte. Karen Schuster (Class of 2008) spotted it growing on the adventitious roots on the trunk of a cabbage palm tree…
Dahoon holly (Ilex cassine var. cassine) is a small tree that grows in moist, freshwater spots at the Oslo Riverfront Conservation Area (ORCA) on both the north and south side of Oslo Road. It shown below at south ORCA in…
Likely you’ve seen this large & striking redhead around town in areas of asphalt & concrete. The last one that I saw (last week) was scaling the vertical concrete wall of the ABC liquor store in the Miracle Mile Shopping…
Forked bluecurls (Trichostema dichotomum) flowers open early in the day. That’s when the beautiful blue flowers are erect with long curled Its stamens (male parts) and styles (female parts). Its lower petals are distinctively spotted to “direct” bees where to…
Paintedleaf, fire-on-the-mountain, painted spurge, and wild poinsettia are among the common named given to the native, but weedy, spurge now ascribed the botanical name Euphorbia cyanthophora. Spurges belong to the family Euphorbiaceae, a very large and diverse plant family with…
Diversity matters – at least to monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus). Milkweeds (Asclepias spp.) are the larval host plants for monarch butterfly. Pictured above along Oslo Road is a monarch butterfly nectaring on scarlet milkweed (Asclepias curassavica), a non-native, commercially available…
Spurred butterfly pea (Centrosema virginianum) is a perennial herbaceous vine that is occasionally found growing at Oslo Riverfront Conservation Area (ORCA) and is pictured above engulfing bushy bluestem (Andropogon glomeratus) at Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge (PINWR). Sometimes you will…
