Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
their way to the sea. However, they can become hopelessly confused by artificial lights
and noisy human audiences. For the best, least-disruptive experience, join a sanctioned
turtle watch; for a list, visit www.myfwc.com/seaturtle, then click on 'Educational Inform-
ation' and 'Where to View Sea Turtles.'
In Florida, even the plants bite: the Panhandle has the most species of carnivorous plants
in the US - a result of its nutrient-poor sandy soil.
Plants
The diversity of the peninsula's flora, including over 4000 species of plants, is unmatched
in the continental US. Florida contains the southern extent of temperate ecosystems and
the northern extent of tropical ones, which blend and merge in a bewildering, fluid tax-
onomy of environments. Interestingly, most of the world at this latitude is a desert, which
Florida definitely is not.
Visit the website of the Florida Native Plant Society ( www.fnps.org ), a nonprofit conserva-
tion organization, for updates on preservation issues and invasive species and for a nice
overview of Florida's native plants and ecosystems.
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, and several
hundred specialized native plants evolved to do so. Much of the Everglades is dominated
by vast expanses of sawgrass, 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, like the pretty American lotus, water lilies and spatter-
 
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