Marjory Stoneman Douglas "Nature of the Everglades"

After reading Marjory Stoneman Douglas’s excerpt from The Everglades: River of Grass, “Nature of the Everglades”, my whole perspective on the entire Everglades has changed forever.  The quote that really caught my eye more than anything is "Water in the rains runs North to Caloosahatchee, west to the seacoast, in some of those small rivers like the Estero and the Imperial, once called Surveyor's Creek, and the Corkscrew River, and into Trafford Lake and Deep Lake, and others.... South is the mass of the Big Cypress."  I think the reason this quote meant so much to me is because I can actually relate to where she is talking about.  I have been on both the Corkscrew and Estero river before and they are every bit as pretty as Marjory Stoneman Douglas describes them as.  Every time I read this quote, it brings back the memories I have of kayaking down the Estero River with my dad and I can almost remember it like it happened the other day.  

 

The other quote that really caught my interest right away was "It is one of those trees people call rubber trees or Banyans. They are all Ficus, but the strangler is Ficus aurea. A strangler seed dropped by a bird in a cranny of oak bark will sprout and send down fine brown root hairs that dangle and lengthen until they touch the ground."  This isn’t the first time I have learned or read about the Banyans.  My teacher in high school used to always rave about how this tree interested her and I always thought she was crazy for loving them so much.  Even as crazy as I thought she was, reading this quote brought back all those memories of being in her class.  

Jennifer Penner

The last quote that caught my attention from “Nature of the Everglades” was “Here the rain falls more powerfully and logically than anywhere else upon the temperate mainland of the United States.”  I found this interesting because you always hear people around here talk about how it really doesn’t rain anywhere else in the United States like it does in Florida.  Rain is what makes Florid how it is today though.  Can you imagine if it didn’t rain as much as it does?!  There would be such a shortage of water it would be scary.  All the crops would die, the Everglades would dry up, and all the rivers and lakes that we have would be threatened forever.