DISCOVERING [EVERGLADES] PLANTS AND ANIMALS
[Everglades] National Park, with its array of plant [communities]—ranging from the pines and palmettos rooted in the pitted [limestone] bedrock of the park’s dry uplands, through the periphyton-based [marsh] community and the brackish [mangrove] [swamp], to the highly saline waters of Florida Bay—is an amateur botanist’s paradise. Many of the park’s plants are found nowhere else in the United States. Only here at the southern tip of the Florida peninsula do tropical trees and orchids mingle with oaks and pines.
This book is not intended to be a manual for identification of the [Everglades] plants. You will need to arm yourself with appropriate field guides to ferns, orchids, aquatic plants, trees, or whatever your special interest may be. The reading list in the appendix suggests a few.
While the park is a mecca for students of plantlife, you must keep one thing in mind: your collecting will be limited to photographs (and, if you’re an artist, drawings). No specimens may be removed or disturbed. Fortunately, with today’s versatile cameras and high-quality color films you can take home a complete and accurate record of your plant discoveries.
Much of our present knowledge of [Everglades] plantlife has been garnered by amateurs. Much more needs to be accumulated before an environmental management program for the park can be perfected, and serious students of botany are invited to make their data available to the park staff.
As for wild animals, one hardly needs to look for them in this park! Most visitors come here, at least partly, for that reason. And even those not seeking wildlife should be alert to avoid stepping on or running down the slower or less wary creatures. But animal watching is a great pastime, and it pays to learn to do it right. A few suggestions may help you make the most of your experience in [Everglades].
BIRDS AND REPTILES
Big Cypress [Swamp] [Mangrove] Swamp Pine Rockland Coastal Prairie [Everglades] BIRDS AND REPTILES Heron Rookeries Brown Pelican Rookeries Spoonbill Rookeries Wood Stork Rookeries Sea Turtle Nesting Recent Crocodile Nesting
A notebook in which to record your observations will help you discover that this park is not just a landscape of grass, water, and trees where a lot of animals happen to live—but a complex, subtropical world of plant-and-animal [communities], each distinct and yet dependent upon the others. To gain real understanding of this world you will need certain skills and some good habits. Ability to identify what you see—with the help of good field guides (see [reading list]) and quite a bit of practice—will make things easier and much more enjoyable.