Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Landscapes & Wildlife
Naturalist Marjory Stoneman Douglas called Florida 'a long pointed spoon'
that is as 'familiar as the map of North America itself.' On that map, the
shapely Floridian peninsula represents one of the most ecologically diverse
regions in the world. Eons ago, a limestone landmass settled just north of the
Tropic of Cancer. A confluence of porous rock and climate gave rise to a wa-
tery world of uncommon abundance - one that could be undone by humanity
in a geological eye blink.
Great Nature Guides
The Living Gulf Coast
(2011), Charles Sobczak
Priceless Florida
(2004), Ellie Whitney, D Bruce Means & Anne Rudloe
Seashore Plants of South Florida & the Caribbean
(1994), David W Nellis
The Land
Florida is many things, but elevated it is decidedly not. This state is as flat as a pancake, or
as Douglas says, like a spoon of freshwater resting delicately in a bowl of saltwater - a
spongy brick of limestone hugged by the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. The
highest point, the Panhandle's Britton Hill, has to stretch to reach 350ft, which isn't half as
tall as the buildings of downtown Miami. This makes Florida officially the nation's flattest
state, despite being 22nd in total area with 58,560 sq miles.
However, over 4000 of those square miles are water; lakes and springs pepper the map
like bullet holes in a road sign. That shotgun-sized hole in the south is Lake Okeechobee,
the second-largest freshwater lake in North America. Sounds impressive, but the bottom of
the lake is only a few feet above sea level, and it's so shallow you can practically wade
across.
Every year, Lake Okeechobee ever so gently floods the southern tip of the peninsula . Or
it wants to; canals divert much of the flow to either irrigation fields or Florida's bracketing
major bodies of water - ie the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. But were the water
