Spanish Moss
Okefenokee Swamp Park, Waycross, Georgia.
The next day it was still raining, and it rained all day. Normal people would have stayed indoors.
But no ... we drove up to Georgia, to the Okefenokee Swamp.
After the boat trip and the train ride there was one more thing that just had to be done ... a walk through the swamp on the boardwalk, to the observation tower.
The view was brilliant from up there ... you get a better idea of just how big the Okefenokee really is. You can't see any end to it ...
Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) is a flowering plant that grows upon larger trees, commonly the southern live oak (Quercus virginiana) or bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) in the southeastern United States from Texas and Florida north to southern Arkansas and Virginia. It is also native to much of Mexico, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Central America, South America and the West Indies as well as being naturalized in Queensland (Australia) and in French Polynesia.
The plant's specific name usneoides means "resembling Usnea", and it indeed closely resembles its namesake Usnea, also known as beard lichen, but in fact Spanish moss is neither a moss nor a lichen. Instead, it is a flowering plant (angiosperm) in the family Bromeliaceae (the Bromeliads) that grows hanging from tree branches in full sun or partial shade.
Spanish moss is an epiphyte which absorbs nutrients (especially calcium) and water from the air and rainfall. Spanish moss was once colloquially known as "air plant".[8]
While it rarely kills the trees upon which it grows, it lowers their growth rate by reducing the amount of light reaching a tree's own leaves. It also increases wind resistance, which can prove fatal to the host tree in a hurricane.
In the southern U.S., the plant seems to show a preference for growth on southern live oak (Quercus virginiana) or bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) because of these trees' high rates of foliar mineral leaching (calcium, magnesium, potassium, and phosphorus) providing an abundant supply of nutrients to the plant, but it can also colonize other tree species such as sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua), crepe-myrtles (Lagerstroemia spp.), other oaks, and even pines.
Spanish Moss
Okefenokee Swamp Park, Waycross, Georgia.
The next day it was still raining, and it rained all day. Normal people would have stayed indoors.
But no ... we drove up to Georgia, to the Okefenokee Swamp.
After the boat trip and the train ride there was one more thing that just had to be done ... a walk through the swamp on the boardwalk, to the observation tower.
The view was brilliant from up there ... you get a better idea of just how big the Okefenokee really is. You can't see any end to it ...
Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) is a flowering plant that grows upon larger trees, commonly the southern live oak (Quercus virginiana) or bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) in the southeastern United States from Texas and Florida north to southern Arkansas and Virginia. It is also native to much of Mexico, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Central America, South America and the West Indies as well as being naturalized in Queensland (Australia) and in French Polynesia.
The plant's specific name usneoides means "resembling Usnea", and it indeed closely resembles its namesake Usnea, also known as beard lichen, but in fact Spanish moss is neither a moss nor a lichen. Instead, it is a flowering plant (angiosperm) in the family Bromeliaceae (the Bromeliads) that grows hanging from tree branches in full sun or partial shade.
Spanish moss is an epiphyte which absorbs nutrients (especially calcium) and water from the air and rainfall. Spanish moss was once colloquially known as "air plant".[8]
While it rarely kills the trees upon which it grows, it lowers their growth rate by reducing the amount of light reaching a tree's own leaves. It also increases wind resistance, which can prove fatal to the host tree in a hurricane.
In the southern U.S., the plant seems to show a preference for growth on southern live oak (Quercus virginiana) or bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) because of these trees' high rates of foliar mineral leaching (calcium, magnesium, potassium, and phosphorus) providing an abundant supply of nutrients to the plant, but it can also colonize other tree species such as sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua), crepe-myrtles (Lagerstroemia spp.), other oaks, and even pines.