Wet
Prairie/Slough
The wet prairies of the Everglades are treeless plains with sparse
to dense ground cover of grasses and herbs, including maidencane,
spikerush, and beakrush. Other typical plants include swamp lily,
arrowhead, pickerel weed, ludwigia, and bladderwort. Wet prairies
occur on low, relatively flat, poorly drained terrain. They are
saturated approximately 90 percent of the year and burn every two
to four years.
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Sloughs within the Everglades are broad shallow
channels inundated with flowing water except during extreme
droughts. They often correspond with linear depressions in
underlying bedrock. Vegetation consists of large emergent herbs and
floating aquatic plants such as white water lily, floating hearts,
and spadderdock. During the rainy season sloughs and wet prairies
are habitat for a wide variety of fish species as well as snails,
crayfish, and other invertebrates. As water levels decline during
the dry season, fish and invertebrates move to deep water sloughs
for refuge. This high concentration of prey during the dry season
is a critical source of food for the endangered wood stork and
other wading birds. Wet prairies and sloughs are threatened by the
spread of melaleuca and cattails. Stands of chemically treated dead
melaleuca can be observed on the north side of I-75 from mile
marker 19 to mile marker 23.
Sawgrass
Marsh
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The most extensive natural community in the
management area is sawgrass marsh. The dominant species sawgrass,
which reaches heights of 10 feet high or more, thrived in the
low-nutrient and fluctuating water conditions of the historic
Everglades. The black peat of the Everglades valued for
agriculture, especially sugar cane, formed over thousands of years
from decaying sawgrass and charcoal from frequent fires. Today
water levels in the marsh are regulated by water control structures
as well as by rainfall and vary from an average of 2 feet deep at
the peak of the wet season in October to below ground level at the
end of the dry season in May. Sawgrass is important to ground
nesting birds such as the American and least bitterns, which build
elevated mound nests out of dead vegetation and use the thick
growth of sawgrass for cover. Elsewhere in south Florida, the
endangered Florida panther sometimes dens in sawgrass during the
dry season (winter and early spring).
Fires every one to five years are typical and result from lightning
in the late spring when the ground surface is dry, although
sawgrass will carry a fire over water. When the peat dries out in
extreme droughts, devastating muck fires may consume the soil and
lower the ground surface converting the sawgrass marsh to a
slough.
Tree
Islands
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Tree islands comprise less than two percent of the
area but are an integral part of the Everglades ecosystem. These
islands vary in size from less than an acre to several hundred
acres. Distant tree islands can be seen from I-75 at mile marker 38
to mile marker 42.
Eighty percent of Everglades plant diversity is found on tree
islands. These islands are also critical habitat for various
wildlife species such as: deer, Florida panther, Florida black
bear, bobcat, raccoon, marsh rabbit, river otter, snakes, migratory
songbirds, small mammals, and butterflies. In addition, tree
islands provide nesting sites for wading birds, alligators,
turtles, and raptors.
Within Everglades and Francis S. Taylor Wildlife Management Area
are different types of tree islands distinguished by species
composition and topography. In the extreme southwestern portion of
the area, species composition is more tropical, and many of the
islands are dominated by cypress. The tear-shaped islands that are
generally oriented north-south following the flow of water were
formed on outcrops of limestone. On most of the area, cabbage palm,
dahoon holly, red bay, sweet bay, and red maple are the dominant
tree species.
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