Back in 1976 my wife and I purchased 15 acres (a little over 6
hectares) of a typically degraded and overgrown pineland in deep south
Dade County, Florida. At the time, the County told us that it would be
impossible and impractical to try to restore it. Well, no one tells us
that!! Through various practices like hypo-hatchet herbicide treatments
and being the first private individuals to reintroducing prescribed
burning, we restored the property to the point that we received the
Forest Stewardship Award for the entire State of Florida a couple of
years ago. Most importantly, our piece of property is now listed S1 and
G1 as being one of the most globally endangered ecosystems in the World.
Our herbaceous biodiversity has increased to a little over 380 species
of plants, 16 species of which occur here and no where else, and are
State and Federally endangered.
We are on the County's list of people that they call for rescuing
plant material when a site is going to be developed / bulldozed /
destroyed (for whatever reason). We have rescued plant material (that
was historically actually on our piece of property, so that we are
preserving the proper genotypes), established them, and then distributed
the plants to other County sites or conservation institutes such as
Fairchild Tropical Gardens. What is kind of typical in our situation is
the phrase "locally abundant but globally endangered." After Hurricane
Andrew in 1992, when we lost 3,500 Pinus elliottii var. densa that were
approximately 125 years old (the overstory species), our property went
from a virtually solid overstory to no overstory at all. We lost the
most prominent plant on the property - the plant that not only made the
property a "pineland," but also the plant that many scientists thought
produced the fuel (pine needles) that would carry a prescribed burn
through the property. That was not the case, as the many varieties of
grass actually do this. We replanted pine tublings, but in the meantime,
another species of plant sprouted that no one has seen anywhere since it
was classified around 1900, with the spotting of a single plant in the
Everglades National Park area by a taxonomist (Smalley). It now is
thriving on our property.
I'm just putting forth some of my experiences that may supplement the
discussion on plant conservation.
Terry A. Glancy
Pine Ridge Orchids, Inc.
21100 SW 300 Street
Homestead, FL 33030-7812
ph (305) 247-4839
(305) 247-3086
fx (305) 247-8853
Email = [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc Email = [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Website = www.PineRidgeOrchids.com
_______________________________________________
the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD)
[email protected]
http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
