Florida Nature Up Close

Today Norm and I visited the Calusa Nature center, right in the middle of Fort Myers, while Doug was preparing to teach his classes tomorrow. Almost all of Southwest Florida appears to be wetland, and this of course is the rainy season, so it's even wetter than usual. They are 8 inches above normal for their year, while back home in Missouri, we are 8 inches below. Nothing looks like drought conditions here! This boardwalk (at left) is on one of the three trails through the preserve. The other two were under water and we would have needed hip boots and a crocodile pacifier to get through them, but they are open in the dry season from December through May. Trails vary from one-half mile to one-and-a-half miles in length; this was the shortest one.

The boardwalk in this section (above) goes through a stand of cypress. The forest varies from cypress to slash pine, depending on the elevation (which varies 10 feet at most!) and the amount of water standing. This part of Florida was heavily logged in the 1930s, so almost all trees are the same age. Trees grow tall and thin here, in competition for light. Their height helps them, the slash pines especially, resist fire. Apparently fire is a persistent danger in these parts, although it's hard to believe on a day like today. In fact, it rained hard this afternoon and is still raining tonight as I write.

At right is an epiphyte anchored to the bark of a cypress. Quill Leaf, (Tillandsia fasciculata) lives off nutrients in the air and moisture from the high humidity and rainfall.


Other epiphytes in this area include the ubiquitous spanish moss. At left is a spectacular colony of ferns that was growing in the cypress swamp. The light green fronds seemed to capture and re-transmit the sunlight that filters down from the canopy. The whole experience was not unlike visiting the Climatron at the Missouri Botanical Garden, but with the added attraction of many birds, including blue jays, pileated woodpeckers and some tiny gray flitting bird that I plan to look up in my bird book as soon as we get home.

We learned quite a bit about the ecosystem from exhibits in the visitor's center, including the fragile nature of the local aquifers that provide fresh drinking water, just a few yards from the salt water of the Gulf. We are looking forward to visiting this area again in the dry season (winter to mid spring) and also the beaches of Sanibel and Captiva islands, which we skipped on this trip largely because of the really, really hot sun. Midwesterners like us will undoubtedly appreciate that high sun index more in winter than right now.