Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Scrubs are found throughout Florida; they are typically old dunes with well-drained
sandy soil. Scrubs often blend into sandy pine flatwoods, which typically have a sparse
longleaf or slash-pine overstory, and an understory of grasses and/or saw palmetto. Saw
palmetto is a vital Florida plant: its fruit is an important food for bears and deer (and a
herbal medicine that's believed to help prevent cancer), it provides shelter for panthers and
snakes, and its flower is an important source of honey. It's named for its sharp saw-toothed
leaf stems.
Formed by the interplay of tides, coral and mangroves, the Florida Keys contain the best
(and in many cases, only) examples of tropical and subtropical hardwood 'hammock,' or
forest, in the continental USA. The Crane Point Museum is an excellent starting point for
learning about this extremely niche ecosystem.
GHOST HUNTERS
Florida has more species of orchid than any other state in the US, and orchids are them-
selves the largest family of flowering plants in the world, with perhaps 25,000 species.
When it comes to botanical fascination, orchids rate highly, and the Florida species that
inspires the most intense devotion is the extremely rare ghost orchid.
This bizarre epiphytic flower has no leaves and usually only one bloom, which is of
course deathly white with two long thin drooping petals that curl like a handlebar mous-
tache. The ghost orchid is pollinated by the giant sphinx moth in the dead of night. This
moth is the only insect with a proboscis long enough to reach down the ghost orchid's
5in-long nectar spur.
The exact locations of ghost orchids are usually kept secret for fear of poachers, who,
as Susan Orlean's book The Orchid Thiefmade clear, are a real threat to their survival.
But the flower's general whereabouts are common knowledge: South Florida's approxim-
ately 2000 ghost orchids are almost all in Big Cypress National Preserve and Fakahat-
chee Strand Preserve State Park. Of course, these parks are home to a great many other
wild orchids, as is Everglades National Park.
To learn more, visit
Florida's Native Orchids
(
www.flnativeorchids.com
)
and
Ghost
Orchid
(
www.ghostorchid.info
)
.
