Simpson Park Hammock
Step off a Brickell sidewalk and into a 2,000-year-old tropical forest where strangler figs and gumbo-limbo trees blot out the skyscrapers. Simpson Park Hammock is one of Miami's last surviving old-growth tropical hardwood hammocks — a pocket of wild, pre-city Florida hiding in plain sight.
A Rare Urban Wilderness
This 7.8-acre preserve is one of the last remnants of the Brickell Hammock, a tropical hardwood forest that once stretched continuously from the Miami River all the way to Coconut Grove before the city rose around it.
The park sits atop the Miami Rock Ridge at over 15 feet above sea level — practically mountainous for flat South Florida — and its dense canopy creates its own cool microclimate, making it noticeably shadier and calmer than the streets outside.
What You'll Find Inside
More than 162 plant species thrive here, including rare threatened and endangered natives: silver palms, Jamaica dogwoods, native orchids, mahogany, and the distinctive peeling red bark of the gumbo-limbo tree.
The park also features a garden center — a living museum of South Florida's ecosystem — and walking trails over coral rock paths. Free guided nature walk tours run on weekends, led by knowledgeable local conservationists.
History Underfoot
Established in 1913 and named for botanist Charles Torrey Simpson, who first visited Miami in 1881 to document its flora, the park is recognised by the Old-Growth Forest Network as a genuine old-growth community — extraordinarily rare inside a major American city.
Archaeological evidence also links the site to the Tequesta people, Miami's pre-colonial indigenous inhabitants, adding a layer of human history to the ecological one.
Simpson Park Hammock on video
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