Temperature: 82°Humidity: 45%
Mostly Sunny
Mostly Sunny
Here at Jones Lake it really is about the flora not the fauna. The landscape around this park is unbelievable. A fellow employee described it as "God must have gotten tired, threw this together, and forgot about it". The only word to describe the woods in this area is "untamed". I can't imagine how deer, bears, and bobcats can move freely here. When I'm out walking the trail there are parts of the path that I couldn't move off of if I wanted to. It really is that thick. So far I have stuck to identifying different animals because, to be honest, they are much easier to identify for me (and yes, I even include the insects in that statement). It's funny, trees and plants don't move, but they are hard to identify. They all look the same how tree-ist of me!). My new goal is to at least once a week try to ID some plants around this place.
For my first flora post I am starting out easy. The Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum) is one of the most striking trees here at the park. You can't miss them, they are the ones growing straight out of the water. To make them even more obvious most of them have Spanish Moss (Tillandsia usneoides) hanging off of them. Spanish moss is fascinating enough for it's own post so I will save it for another day. I found out that the trees are called bald because they are deciduous and lose their leaves in the winter. Currently they are growing their new leaves in giving them the appearance of bright green scrub brushes. All around these trees grow cypress knees, pictured above. At one point scientist thought the knees were to provide more oxygen to the tree's roots but there has been no evidence to support this. Now they are just thought to be a stabilizing system for the trees since they live in boggy ground. The root system is so strong that even strong hurricanes rarely topple bald cypress.
For my first flora post I am starting out easy. The Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum) is one of the most striking trees here at the park. You can't miss them, they are the ones growing straight out of the water. To make them even more obvious most of them have Spanish Moss (Tillandsia usneoides) hanging off of them. Spanish moss is fascinating enough for it's own post so I will save it for another day. I found out that the trees are called bald because they are deciduous and lose their leaves in the winter. Currently they are growing their new leaves in giving them the appearance of bright green scrub brushes. All around these trees grow cypress knees, pictured above. At one point scientist thought the knees were to provide more oxygen to the tree's roots but there has been no evidence to support this. Now they are just thought to be a stabilizing system for the trees since they live in boggy ground. The root system is so strong that even strong hurricanes rarely topple bald cypress.
Picture found at: About.com
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