What's Happinin' - Around the Island
On this incredibly humid and soggy day today the Florida fish and Wildlife conducted a prescribed burn on a few acres of Pine Rockland habitat yesterday off Key Deer Blvd. located on Big Pine Key.
This Pine Rockland habitat is essential to some species of plants and animals. Without the burn which is a natural component of our ecology this P. R. habitat would slowly convert to Hardwood Hammock. Not so good.
The area is walked through to ensure no animals are present and when weather conditions are right they begin the burn. The conditions were perfect yesterday with high humidity and low wind. The fungus on my orchids liked the weather too.
Here we have a Sable Palm, an unusual species for the Pine Rocklands. An enterprising bird picked just the right spot to deposit this seed.
This image shows the far more common Brittle Thatch Palm( Thrinax morrissii) and the resulting char from this quickly moving fire. At one time it was said that hwen transplanting Brittle Thatch you should flame the cut root ends to simulate fire. This practise never worked for me as all my transplants just died. The story of my life.That's it, see ya.
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2 comments:
Prescribed burn is essential to forests. Without them one ends up with the fires that burn uncontrollably, like we had recently in so. California. Good post.
Very interesting. While I know pine forests get occasional controlled burns, it seems strange to see the palm trees in the middle!
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