Dispatches from the Land of Flowers: A Snake Man, a Sad Poet, a Lightning Stalker and Other Stories About Real Florida

Nobody knows Florida as does Jeff Klinkenberg, who has made a career of searching out the Florida that tourists, and most Florida residents, never see. In this sequel to his popular and critically acclaimed Real Florida, Klinkenberg, a native of Miami and a columnist for the St. Petersburg Times, takes us to the winter preserve of the sandhill crane, in search of the rare ghost orchid and the Okeechobee gourd, which was believed to be extinct. We get to attend a conch reunion and a sponge-o-rama and to visit the last wild man of the Everglades, the Highwaymen who painted glorious Florida landscapes and sold them by the side of the road, gandy dancers and a man who stalks lightning.