Fern Forest Nature Center

Swamp Land Ferns

Take a quick escape into Florida’s natural past with a visit to the Fern Forest Nature Center in Greater Fort Lauderdale (Coconut Creek), a vast nature preserve featuring over 30 types of ferns and much more.

Fern Forest hosts several different habitats, native plants, and an onsite educational nature center featuring various reptiles inside. The center provides an array of nature programs that delve into the 10 distinct plant communities identified within the boundaries of Fern Forest, which totals to about 250 acres in all. This preserve was first established in 1979 to protect ‘a Florida that has mostly vanished along this coast’, something it has done very well over the years.

A walk along the Cypress Creek Boardwalk or an in-depth hike on any of the available nature trails, such as the Red Maple or Prairie Overlook Trail, will take you to a time before the heavy deforestation of this Everglades area, showing you the original floodplain of Cypress Creek before the waters were diverted for agriculture purposes.

You will see and learn about several different species of flora and fauna, mostly flora, including but not limited to the following: