This is the last of its kind in our parts. Dolphin Stadium sits where an expanse of it once flourished. To see your piece of scrub, enroll in a naturalist-led program at Arch Creek or Greynolds Park, or call the EEL office (see box, next page).

HAMMOCK

There are 27 endangered and threatened plants in the evergreen forests called hammocks. Most of the trees and shrubs, such as ficus, gumbo-limbos, lancewoods and paradise trees, originated in the West Indies rather than North America, but temperate live oaks have found a home here, too.

One hammock in Goulds once was famous as a home to a tourist attraction called Orchid Jungle. Today, it has reverted to its original name, Hattie Bauer Hammock. It was acquired by the Environmentally Endangered Lands program in 1996. The county still is working on a plan that will allow public use.

Meanwhile, the slow work of forest restoration began half a dozen years ago, interrupted by two bad hurricane seasons. Rampant, invasive vines were everywhere, but biologists discovered a native vine on the site that had dwindled to a single plant. It is a passion vine called goatsfoot, or Passiflora sexflora.

Jennifer Possley at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden took cuttings of the passion vine, grew them, and ''we have reintroduced them, and they're doing awesome,'' says Jane Dozier, who is supervising the county's restoration effort. ``It now has ripe fruit.''

A natural solution hole has been found to contain the threatened broad halberd fern and maidenhair ferns. The halberd, Tectaria heracleifolia, is named for a medieval fighting instrument it resembles, a combination ax and spike.

There's an expansive out-cropping of limestone that was beneath vines, like an original floor. Ferns are claiming its nicks and notches as their own.

Cuban nakedwood, Colubrina cubensis var. floridana, is highly endangered, but growing robustly here. It's more like a big, sprawling shrub than a tree. The flowers are tiny and whitish, with a sticky, resinous center. The name Colubrina means shaped like a snake, and this plant sometimes is called Cuban snakebark.

PINE ROCKLAND

Among our rarest surviving ecosystems is a bony place of limestone and fire called the pine rockland. On breezy days, the pines whisper audibly, their needles whooshing to each other. On early summer afternoons, scissor-tail kites circle overhead and we see an osprey fly to a pine bough, fish in claw.

This island of serenity is completely surrounded by urban development.

Rockdale Pineland runs along South Dixie Highway between Southwest 144th Street and Southwest 152nd Street, forming an isosceles triangle. An office park once was planned here, but the highly endangered plant called the Redland sandmat saved it. Little colonies of the sandmat (once known as the deltoid spurge) snooze peacefully on rock faces, laid bare when a railroad bed was dug to transport stone from nearby borrow pits.

Only about 4,000 acres of the original 185,000 acres of rock pineland remain, and EEL has added 850 acres to those now protected and managed.

Among the pines are locustberry, laden with panicles of flowers that start out white then turn pink. Saw palmettos have sweet-smelling flowers attracting bees on a warm afternoon. Coontie, the native cycads whose rhizomes were collected by pioneers to make starch, pop up here and there, along with scrub oaks, wild poinsettias and yellow-flowering lantana.

Hiking through palmettos we find the prickly pear, Opuntia humifusa, holding up gorgeous yellow flowers like golden chalices.

Last year, 40 volunteers planted a narrow strip of the pinelands that runs along the South Dixie perimeter. It was accidentally burned when a cooking fire got out of control. Remaining Brazilian pepper trees were cleared and ground into mulch, and the stage was set for renewal.

''We hope to restore the whole edge,'' says project manager Tiffany Smith. Baby pineland plants trying to survive, in addition to the little pines, include yellowtop, crotolaria or rattlebox and eupatorium with fuzzy pale blue to white flowers that butterflies and skippers love.