Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Naturalist Doug Alderson helped create the Big Bend Paddling Trail, and in
Waters Less
Traveled
(2005) he describes his adventures: dodging pygmy rattlesnakes, meeting Shitty
Bill, discussing Kemp's ridley sea turtles and pondering manatee farts.
Wetlands & Swamps
It takes special kinds of plants to thrive in the humid, waterlogged, sometimes salty
marshes, sloughs, swales, seeps, basins, marl prairies and swamps of Florida. Much of the
Everglades is dominated by vast expanses of saw grass, which is actually a sedge with fine
toothlike edges that can reach 10ft high. South Florida is a symphony of sedges, grasses
and rushes. These hardy water-tolerant species provide abundant seeds to feed birds and
animals, protect fish in shallow water, and pad wetlands for birds and alligators.
The strangest plants are the submerged and immersed species that grow in, under and
out of the water. Free-floating species include bladderwort and coontail, a species that
lives, flowers and is pollinated entirely underwater. Florida's swamps are abundant with
rooted plants with floating leaves, such as the pretty American lotus, water lilies and spat-
terdock (if you love names, you'll love Florida botany). Another common immersed plant,
bur marigold, can paint whole prairies yellow.
A dramatic, beautiful tree in Florida's swamps is the bald cypress, which is the most
flood-tolerant tree. It can grow 150ft tall, with buttressed, wide trunks and roots with
'knees' that poke above the drenched soil.
Nature Guides
The Living Gulf Coast
, Charles Sobczak
Priceless Florida
, Ellie Whitney, D Bruce Means & Anne Rudloe
Forests, Scrubs & Flatwoods
The forests of the mainland, such as they are, are mainly found in the Everglades, where
small changes in elevation and substrate are the difference between prairie and massive
'domes' of bald cypress and towering pine trees. Cypress domes are a particular kind of
swamp when a watery depression occurs in a pine flatwood.
