journey through mangroves

[asakiyume]

Why do I love mangroves? Because they grow between water and land, between saltwater and fresh. They protect coasts from hurricanes; they're like above-water coral reefs; they are all a-tangle. And they have weird and wonderful traits.

Here's what Marjory Stoneman Douglas said about them:

Two kinds of mangroves dominate … the black and the red. It begins on the last peat with tall hammocks and forests of buttonwoods, called “white mangrove,” not a true mangrove at all but Conocarpus. Then in the first level of the high tide stands deep-rooted the black mangrove, the Avicennia nitida, not tall but thick, which often sends from its submerged roots up through two or three feet of mud and water the curious pneumatophores, like thousands of sharp bristling sticks, most difficult to wade through. They are breathing organs. The darg-green leaves above them often exude salt crystals. The roots stain the water brown with strong tannin.

Beyond that, marching out into the tides low or high, and rooted deep below them in marl over the rock, goes the great Rhizophora, the red mangrove, on its thousands of acres of entwined, buttressed and bracing gray arches. The huge trunks, often seven feet in circumference, stand as high as eighty feet.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas, The Everglades: River of Grass, 50th Anniversary Edition (Sarasota, FL: Pineapple Press, 1997), 55–56.

You see what looks like a tiny forest of sticks in the photo below? Those are the pneumatophores, helping the black mangroves breathe.



But most of my pictures are of red mangroves, with their arching prop roots and their torpedo seeds:

prop roots


torpedo seeds hanging down




What I've always wanted to do on mangroves:




tall (but a skinny baby compared to the ones Marjory Stoneman Douglas described)


And fencelike:



Borderland plants


A mangrove tunnel



And--blurry--a crocodile among the mangroves!

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Love those, especially the tunnel. Now I know why people love to draw them so much.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

That mangrove tunnel is gorgeous!

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

Beautiful pictures!

I love those roots. So weird and tangling.

And the picture with the clouds mirrored is quite lovely.

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

pneumatophores...

Oh... This is all amazing. So wonderful and strange.

Thank you so much!

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Your music is so appropriate for the last picture. ;)

Mangoves are great. I've never visited one but I'd like to.

[sovay]

Because they grow between water and land, between saltwater and fresh. They protect coasts from hurricanes; they're like above-water coral reefs; they are all a-tangle.

Thank you for this further interlude with mangroves. You photograph and write them beautifully.

What I've always wanted to do on mangroves

Makes perfect sense to me.

[cafenowhere.livejournal.com]

It makes me very happy to know you got to visit the mangroves. I love the pic of the tunnel, too.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Because they grow between...

Borderlands, indeed.

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

I don't know how to respond. I value mangroves very, very highly and the world needs them. This week there was terrible and frightening news of a huge mangrove die-off, due to climate change and warming seas.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Looks like a great adventure! Next time you come out here, we can take you for a paddle through the mangroves. I can guarantee there are no crocodiles...

[syomsong.livejournal.com]

How beautiful landscape! The tunnel and the still waters. Borderlands are empelling. So you do research work for your novel... good to hear of your work.

You look such a sweet summer girl!

[aamcnamara.livejournal.com]

Ooh. Thank you! These are lovely.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

This post was good for my soul. *wallows in beauty*