What image comes to mind when you think of Florida? Sunshine? Palms? Beaches? Oranges? Disney World? There are those things and so much more to be seen and enjoyed in the state that Juan Ponce de León named "La Florida." Florida Icons illustrates the quintessential symbols that make Florida so fascinating and unique.Profiled here are fifty classic symbols of this extraordinary state, revealing little-known facts, longtime secrets, and historical legends. From hurricanes to Apalachicola oysters and from the Florida scrub-jay to the Greek spongers of Tarpon Springs, here's the inside story about the very things that give this state its character.Did you know that Lake Okeechobee-the second-largest freshwater lake within the contiguous United States-holds one trillion gallons of water? Or that Florida may be America's only state where its citizens eat the official state tree-the ubiquitous and stately cabbage palm? Or that after the girl of his dreams dumped him in Latvia, Ed Leedskalnin emigrated to North America and sculpted more than a thousand tons of limestone into what is today called Coral Castle, near Homestead-and that this was the set for the 1961 tacky (and racy) movie Nude on the Moon? For Floridians and newcomers alike, Florida Icons will be a treasured keepsake of the Sunshine State.