In Florida, spring burnings are an important tool in maintaining healthy sandhill communities. Fire stimulates pine cones to release their seeds, furthermore, seeds of many species depend on the heat of fire to germinate. The study system was a typical Florida Sandhill community dominated by longleaf pine, Pinus palustris Mill. Turkey Oak is often stunted, up to 20m tall, but usually smaller, with long, oblong leaves with three, five, or seven pinnate lobes. Sand live oak is a shrub or small to medium-sized tree.
Leaves are oblong, to elliptic, thick, and strongly revolute.
Dog tongue is a member of the Polygonaceae and exhibits small white or pinkish flowers in terminal and subterminal clusters. All the burning regimes began in 1976, except the seven year plots which began in 1975. By 1996 all regimes had run for at least twenty-one years. The seven year plots had been burned four times, the five year plots five times, the two year plots eleven times, and the one year plots twenty-one times. The control plots had not been burned in at least 29 years.