On the coolest morning of the 2013 winter, we were fortunate to have a guided tour of the Myakka River State Forest in Southwest Florida, with a highly accomplished retired botanist/naturalist, Dr. Bill Dunson, who volunteers his expertise so that we may treasure our planet. The foresters regularly burn the forest in the winter when it is dry, which keeps some plants from dominating, but also destroys some of the wetland plants. Dr. Dunson also showed what happens when the shallow aquifers are drained to provide water for people and crops. The palmettos flourish and wetland species disappear.
Many of the flowers of the forest are tiny. The soil is silica washed down from the mountains and nearly sterile, so the lakes are very clean and the plants that grow here have various strategies for getting nutrients. for example, the red bladder wort dissolves insects that land on it.
Feb 212013