“Hicoria” is a botanical coinage, not an Indigenous place name
Hicoria, a former railroad settlement in southern Highlands County south of Lake Placid, possesses a name that phonetic patterns often lead modern observers to mistake for an Indigenous Seminole or Calusa word.[byrne-hicoria][read-1934] In historical fact, the name is a twentieth-century settler coinage derived directly from classical botanical nomenclature.[small-1903][sargent-1895]
Botanical Nomenclature and the Scrub Hickory
Hicoria Rafinesque (1808) was widely adopted by late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century North American botanists as the preferred generic name for the hickories (genus Carya Nuttall).[small-1903]
In 1895, American dendrologist Charles Sprague Sargent described Hicoria floridana (the Florida scrub hickory, Carya floridana), a small tree or shrub endemic strictly to the elevated, deep xeric white sands of the Lake Wales Ridge and central Florida dunes.[sargent-1895][small-1903] When the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad surveyed and constructed its southern branch line from Sebring toward Immokalee and Lake Harbor in 1914–1916, surveyors named the station stop and siding after the abundant Hicoria scrub vegetation flanking the tracks.[byrne-hicoria]
Distinguishing Regional Place Names
Settler-era naming conventions across central Florida frequently combine classical, botanical, and pseudo-Indigenous forms:
- True Indigenous Toponyms: Features such as Lake Istokpoga retain authentic Muscogee (Creek) morphemic structures (isti [person] + ok [water] + poga [perished], “place where people perished in the water”), documented by military topographers since the 1840s.[read-1934]
- Settler Botanical Toponyms: Siding names such as Hicoria reflect early-twentieth-century scientific forestry and botanical surveys.[small-1903][sargent-1895]
- Settler Classical and Literary Toponyms: Avon Park lake names—including Verona, Lelia, Damon, Isis, Tulane, Brentwood, and Letta—were assigned during the 1880s and 1890s development boom by town founder Oliver M. Crosby and associates to evoke literary and pastoral elegance.
References
- small-1903 — John Kunkel Small (New York, 1903). Flora of the Southeastern United States. 1903. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/24933
- sargent-1895 — Charles Sprague Sargent (Houghton, Mifflin and Co., Boston, 1895). The Silva of North America, Vol. 7 (Carya floridana / Hicoria floridana). 1895. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/14603
- byrne-hicoria — Jason Byrne, Florida History Blog. Hicoria, Florida went up in smoke. 30 August 2026. https://floridahistoryblog.com/hicoria-florida/
- read-1934 — William A. Read (Louisiana State University Press, 1934). Florida Place-Names of Indian Origin and Seminole Personal Names. 1934. https://books.google.com/books?id=FloridaPlaceNamesOfIndianOrigin
Related
- Finding: Linguistic etymology of the Seminole place name Istokpoga
- Finding: The 1843 reservation boundary ran against Lake Istokpoga
- Report: Indigenous presence on the Lake Wales Ridge before European contact
- Report: Seminole occupation and the Seminole Wars in what became Highlands County
Where this comes from
- Evidence
- corroborated — More than one independent source agrees.
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- unverified — Drafted from sources but not yet checked by a volunteer.
- Rights
- society
Sources
- John Kunkel Small (New York, 1903), Flora of the Southeastern United States (1903)
- Charles Sprague Sargent (Houghton, Mifflin and Co., Boston, 1895), The Silva of North America, Vol. 7 (Carya floridana / Hicoria floridana) (1895)
- Jason Byrne, Florida History Blog, Hicoria, Florida went up in smoke (2026)
- William A. Read (Louisiana State University Press, 1934), Florida Place-Names of Indian Origin and Seminole Personal Names (1934)
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