Avon Park Air Force Range, (APAFR), a 106,000 acre military installation in southeastern Polk and northeastern Highlands counties, contains over 58,000 acres of natural area quality lands. Avon Park Air Force Range and surrounding conservation areas total over a quarter million acres of land that serve a key role in protecting the regional biodiversity. Perhaps unique to APAFR is the long uninterrupted history of prescribed fire and lightning and mission fires that have helped maintain the overall ecological integrity. Some of the best examples of intact landscapes characteristic of south-central Florida are found in and near active air-to-ground training ranges where frequent fires are assured and unexploded ordnance provide protection from development.

Despite its once vast extent and rich flora and fauna, dry prairie has remained one of the most poorly described ecosystems in North America. Originally dry prairie covered approximately 1.2 million acres in Florida, an area nearly the size of Everglades National Park (1,399,078 acres), yet, it has been far less studied.

APAFR lies within the pine savanna-flatwoods/dry prairie region of south-central Florida and is the only federally-owned land containing dry prairie. Public land surveys and notes reveal that the presettlement extent of dry prairie at APAFR was approximately 24,000 acres of which about 18,000 acres remain. Avon Park Air Force Range dry prairie is part of the Kissimmee River valley dry prairie region, an area that historically encompassed some 786 square miles (503,428 acres).

The vascular flora of APAFR currently totals 1,050 plant taxa (82% native), representing nearly 45% of the flora of central Florida. Included are some 15 globally rare plants, two federal listed plants, and 17 rare plant community types. Many of the regionally endemic plants found at APAFR inhabit the pine savanna-flatwoods/dry prairie community. Species richness within the pine savanna-flatwoods/dry prairie landscape at APAFR is exceptionally high, with a single-event quantitative vegetation sampling having documented up to 49 species in 1m2, 118 species in 100 m2, and 170 species in 1000 m2.

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