Native Foods
Cultivated Plants
Florida natives grew, or highly encouraged to grow, many plants and herbs such as:
- maize
- beans
- squash
- pumpkins
- gourds
- citrons
- sunflowers
Wild Plants Collected
Women and children spent much of their time gathering plants, herbs, roots and barks for use as food, medicine or weaving materials.
- acorns
- hickory nuts
- plums
- blackberries
- elderberries
- peppervine
- ground cherries
- bristlegrass
- spatterdock
- yucca
- cabbage palm
- water lily
- rivercane
- palm berries
- wild cherries
- persimmons
- blueberries
- huckleberries
- poke weed
- amaranth
- broomgrass
- cattail
- ache
- morning glory
- saw palmetto
- yaupon
- smartweed
- knotted
- bullrush
- nut sedge
- buttonbush
- watershield
- sea grapes
- coco plums
- coontie
- prickley pear
- sea oats
- goosefoot
Fishing Harvests
Natives harvested the rivers, lakes and seas with their nets and weirs. These are some of the many food items they caught:
- catfish
- perch
- trout
- bream
- redfish
- porpoise
- tarpon
- drum
- gar
- bass
- bluegill
- rays
- sunfish
- sheephead
- croaker
- grouper
- mullet
- sawfish
- manatee
- whales
- sharks
Shellfish
Shellfish were collected whenever possible, as evidenced by the huge midden mounds of shell that still line the coasts and other waterways of Florida today.
- oysters
- snails
- clams
- coquina
- conch
- crabs
Game Animals
Warriors hunted large game with bows and arrows. Women and children stalked smaller game and birds. Some of the animals that were hunted include:
- deer
- raccoon
- gray fox
- squirrel
- cotton mole
- red wolf
- otter
- seal
- rabbit
- cotton mouse
- bobcat
- beaver
- wood rat
- muskrat
- mink
- bison
- turkey
- bear
- panther
- opossum
- gophers
- skunk
- weasel
Reptiles
Even reptiles were hunted and utilized for food. They include:
- rat snake
- toads
- snapping turtle
- box turtle
- rattlesnake
- cottonmouth moccasin
- slider turtle
- soft shelled turtle
- black snake
- alligator
- chicken turtle
- leopard frog
- green water snake
- brown water snake
- pond turtle
- musk turtle
- mud snake
- cooter turtle
- coachwhip
- kingsnake
- indigo snake
- gopher tortoise
Birds
Birds were utilized for both feathers and meat and were hunted with bolas or with traps. Some of these include:
- pelican
- auk
- crane
- gannet
- turkey vulture
- gull
- eagle
- ibis
- cormorant
- heron
- duck
- geese
- loon
- turkey
- egret
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