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.
[Illustration: 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.
Knowing where to look for the animals helps; this book and the field
guides are useful for this. You’ll find that some species are seen only
in certain parts of the park, while others roam far and wide. Don’t look
for the crocodile in the fresh-water glades—nor for the round-tailed
muskrat in the mangroves. On the other hand, don’t be surprised to see
the raccoon or its tracks in almost any part of the park.
Keep in mind that all species in the national parks are protected by
law. Most wild animals are harmless as long as they are not molested. If
you encounter an animal you aren’t sure about, simply keep out of its
way; don’t try to harm it or drive it off. Always remember that each
animal is part of the Everglades community; you cannot disturb it
without affecting everything else.