WIND ACROSS THE GLADES

Rex Burress

When the hurricane winds and water were blowing across Florida, I thought of the everglades and wondered what damage was being wrought on those spacious marsh lands.

I haven't heard of any storm assessments that have been done on Everglade National Park, but you know the vegetation took a hit when winds blow a hundred miles an hour. As destructive forces, hurricanes are unequaled. Shorelines are churned into new configurations. Any land island “hammock” of trees is imperiled--and the glades has groves of exotic trees that had their origins via wind from the West Indies. Even though we think of the glades as a “River of Grass,” you can find 'jungle/islands' of unusual trees, like Gumbo Limbo—a most attractive tree with smooth reddish bark much like California's Madrone Tree.

Also among those quaint tropical trees are a couple deadly characters: The Poisonwood Tree has bark that oozes poisonous milky sap causing serious skin problems. The other suspicious tropic immigrant is the Manchineel [Tree of Death.]...one of the most poisonous of plants. Even drops dripping from the branches are dangerous. Strangler Figs, Buttonwood Trees, Mahogany, and Palms also occupy the hammock/tree islands. The root structure is shallow since much of Florida is underlain with crumbly Oolite limestone.

Hurricanes not only do damage, they also stir a great variety of organisms into new habitats. There are nearly 2000 species of flowering plants in the glades—and nearly all of them have been blown in on the seed-winds from tropical places! There is salt water in the mix, too, which helps the salt-tolerant vegetation survive, especially the coastal mangrove masses, even though the Everglade saw-grass needs fresh water from the lakes to the north.

My chance to visit the Glades was when my cousins Al and Pat Tolle were employed there in the late 1970's. I spent two weeks prowling the swamps and experiencing an alien world of plant and wildlife wonders. When I stepped off the Anhinga Trail board-walk into the almost impenetrable thickets left behind from previous hurricanes, I found a snug tunnel path wandering off into the morass, and was delighted to find golden web spinner spiders draped across the gaps, epiphyte air plants and air orchids hanging in the maze. Colorful, spiraled tree snails clung to the trunks—also a gift from the tropics! The Park Service gave me two of the protected shells just as a reminder of that trip.

Upon my emergence from the jungles, I found out the 'tunnels' were carved out by alligators! I indeed saw gators in the water but met none face to face! I did see the rare Bahama Pintail, however, and cousin Al and I paddled eight miles to Mud Lake so I could photograph the Rosette Spoonbills. The park has about 350 species of resident birds, and somehow they manage to cling to their environment in spite of sweeping storms.

The sturdy mangroves offers an especially good place for bird protection and nesting sites. Al and family took me around Cape Sable shell beaches to Whitewater Bay, and we released a pet raccoon into those woody foundations sticking into the mud like crooked stilts! May the wind blow fair!

“Nature is ever at work building up and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another.” --John Muir

“Be like the bird which on frail branches balanced/A moment sits and sings;/He feels them tremble, but he sings unshaken,/Knowing that he has wings.”--Victor Hugo

“Nature, with equal mind,/Sees all her sons at play,/Sees man confront the wind,/The wind sweep man away.” --Matthew Arnold