University of Florida Extension Services Natural Resources Extension Agent Eleanor Foerste, left, during a guided Woods Walk with a group of hikers, examines animal prints left in a marsh at the southern end of Lake Lizzie Nature Preserve. The Woods Walk program, which is free and open to the public, guides tours through Osceola County parks and natural areas with the intent to inform the public about Florida’s ecosystem and how it is being managed and maintained.

At right, a detail of the cinnamon fern (osmunda cinnamomea), which grows a vertical, spore-bearing frond in the spring.

News-Gazette Photos/Andrew Sullivan