Southern coastal plain nonriverine cypress dome

Last updated June 22, 2019

The southern coastal plain nonriverine cypress dome is a forested wetland community found in the southern Atlantic coastal plain, in the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi.^[1]

A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is inundated by water, either permanently or seasonally, where oxygen-free processes prevail. The primary factor that distinguishes wetlands from other land forms or water bodies is the characteristic vegetation of aquatic plants, adapted to the unique hydric soil. Wetlands play a number of functions, including water purification, water storage, processing of carbon and other nutrients, stabilization of shorelines, and support of plants and animals. Wetlands are also considered the most biologically diverse of all ecosystems, serving as home to a wide range of plant and animal life. Whether any individual wetland performs these functions, and the degree to which it performs them, depends on characteristics of that wetland and the lands and waters near it. Methods for rapidly assessing these functions, wetland ecological health, and general wetland condition have been developed in many regions and have contributed to wetland conservation partly by raising public awareness of the functions and the ecosystem services some wetlands provide.

The Atlantic coastal plain is a physiographic region of low relief along the East Coast of the United States. It extends 2,200 miles (3,500 km) from the New York Bight southward to a Georgia/Florida section of the Eastern Continental Divide, which demarcates the plain from the ACF River Basin in the Gulf Coastal Plain to the west. The province is bordered on the west by the Atlantic Seaboard fall line and the Piedmont plateau, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, and to the south by the Floridian province. The Outer Lands archipelagic region forms the insular northeasternmost extension of the Atlantic coastal plain.

Alabama is a state in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama is the 30th largest by area and the 24th-most populous of the U.S. states. With a total of 1,500 miles (2,400 km) of inland waterways, Alabama has among the most of any state.

They are small forested wetlands characterized by their dome-shaped appearance, with taller trees in the center and shorter trees around the perimeter. These wetlands occur on poorly drained depressions surrounded by pine flatwoods. The stagnant water in these wetlands is highly acidic. It is 1 to 4 feet (30 to 122 cm) deep in the center, becoming shallower at the margins.^[1]

Pond cypress ( Taxodium ascendens ) dominates the canopy, which it shares with swamp tupelo ( Nyssa biflora ) and sweetgum ( Liquidambar styraciflua ). Shrubs include myrtle holly ( Ilex myrtifolia ), dog hobble ( Leucothoe racemosa ), southern wax myrtle ( Morella cerifera ), buttonbush ( Cephalanthus occidentalis ), sweet pepperbush ( Clethra alnifolia ), fetterbush lyonia ( Lyonia lucida ), and snowbell ( Styrax americanus ).^[1]

Taxodium ascendens, also known as pond cypress, is a deciduous conifer of the genus Taxodium, native to North America. Many botanists treat it as a variety of bald cypress, Taxodium distichum rather than as a distinct species, but it differs in ecology, occurring mainly in still blackwater rivers, ponds and swamps without silt-rich flood deposits. It predominates in cypress dome habitats.

Nyssa biflora, commonly referred to as the swamp tupelo, or swamp black-gum is a species of tupelo that lives in wetland habitats. Swamp tupelo grows chiefly in the coastal plains from Delaware, eastern Maryland, and southeastern Virginia, south to southern Florida and west to eastern Texas. Its range extends north up the Mississippi Valley to southern Arkansas and west and south Tennessee.

American sweetgum, also known as American storax, hazel pine, bilsted, redgum, satin-walnut, star-leaved gum, alligatorwood, or simply sweetgum, is a deciduous tree in the genus Liquidambar native to warm temperate areas of eastern North America and tropical montane regions of Mexico and Central America. Sweet gum is one of the main valuable forest trees in the southeastern United States, and is a popular ornamental tree in temperate climates. It is recognizable by the combination of its five-pointed star-shaped leaves and its hard, spiked fruits. It is currently classified in the plant family Altingiaceae, but was formerly considered a member of the Hamamelidaceae.

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Myakka River State Park is a Florida State Park, that is located nine miles (14 km) east of Interstate 75 in Sarasota County and a portion of southeastern Manatee County. The state park consists of 37,000 acres (150 km²), making it one of the state's largest parks. It is also one of the oldest parks in the state. It was delineated in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps. A small portion of the park was the gift of the family of Bertha Palmer to the state. The park is named after the Myakka River.

The Apalachicola National Forest is the largest U.S. National Forest in the state of Florida. It encompasses 632,890 acres and is the only national forest located in the Florida Panhandle. The National Forest provides water and land-based outdoors activities such as off-road biking, hiking, swimming, boating, hunting, fishing, horse-back riding, and off-road ATV usage.

The wetlands of Louisiana are water-saturated coastal and swamp regions of southern Louisiana.

The Atchafalaya Basin, or Atchafalaya Swamp, is the largest wetland and swamp in the United States. Located in south central Louisiana, it is a combination of wetlands and river delta area where the Atchafalaya River and the Gulf of Mexico converge. The river stretches from near Simmesport in the north through parts of eight parishes to the Morgan City southern area.

Hammock (ecology) Ecosystem in Southeastern United States consisting of stands of trees, usually hardwood, that form an ecological island within a contrasting ecosystem

Hammock is a term used in the southeastern United States for stands of trees, usually hardwood, that form an ecological island in a contrasting ecosystem. Hammocks grow on elevated areas, often just a few inches high, surrounded by wetlands that are too wet to support them. The term hammock is also applied to stands of hardwood trees growing on slopes between wetlands and drier uplands supporting a mixed or coniferous forest. Types of hammocks found in the United States include tropical hardwood hammocks, temperate hardwood hammocks, and maritime or coastal hammocks. Hammocks are also often classified as hydric, mesic or xeric. The types are not exclusive, but often grade into each other.

Pocosin is a type of palustrine wetland with deep, acidic, sandy, peat soils. Groundwater saturates the soil except during brief seasonal dry spells and during prolonged droughts. Pocosin soils are nutrient-deficient (oligotrophic), especially in phosphorus.

Florida scrub Ecological region in Florida, US

Florida sand pine scrub is an endangered subtropical forest ecoregion found throughout Florida in the United States. It is found on coastal and inland sand ridges and is characterized by an evergreen xeromorphic plant community dominated by shrubs and dwarf oaks. Because the low-nutrient sandy soils do not retain moisture, the ecosystem is effectively an arid one. Wildfires infrequently occur in the Florida scrub. Most of the annual rainfall falls in summer. It is endangered by residential, commercial and agricultural development, with the largest remaining block in and around the Ocala National Forest. Lake Wales Ridge National Wildlife Refuge also holds a high proportion of remaining scrub habitat, while the Archbold Biological Station near Lake Placid contains about 20 km² (7.7 sq mi) of scrub habitat and sponsors biological research on it.

The Boeuf Wildlife Management Area is 51,000-acre (210 km²)s of bottomland hardwoods, cypress-tupelo swamp, and other wetland habitats in northeast Louisiana. It is owned by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. Boeuf Wildlife Management Area is located in Caldwell and Catahoula Parishes, near the city of Columbia, Louisiana.

The geography and ecology of the Everglades involve the complex elements affecting the natural environment throughout the southern region of the U.S. state of Florida. Before drainage, the Everglades were an interwoven mesh of marshes and prairies covering 4,000 square miles (10,000 km²). The Everglades is simultaneously a vast watershed that has historically extended from Lake Okeechobee 100 miles (160 km) south to Florida Bay, and many interconnected ecosystems within a geographic boundary. It is such a unique meeting of water, land, and climate that the use of either singular or plural to refer to the Everglades is appropriate. When Marjory Stoneman Douglas wrote her definitive description of the region in 1947, she used the metaphor "River of Grass" to explain the blending of water and plant life.

The Middle Atlantic coastal forests are a temperate coniferous forest mixed with patches of evergreen broadleaved forests along the coast of the southeastern United States.

Lyonia lucida is a species of flowering plant in the heath family known by the common names fetterbush lyonia, hurrahbush, and staggerbush. Other plants may be called fetterbush. This broadleaved evergreen plant grows on the coastal plain of the southeastern United States from Virginia to Florida to Louisiana. It also occurs in Cuba.

A cypress dome is a type of freshwater forested wetland, or a swamp, found in the southeastern part of the United States. They are dominated by the Taxodium spp., either the bald cypress, or pond cypress. The name comes from the dome-like shape of treetops, formed by smaller trees growing on the edge where the water is shallow while taller trees grow at the center in deeper water. They usually appear as circular, but if the center is too deep, they can form a “doughnut” shape when viewed from above. Cypress domes are characteristically small compared to other swamps, however they can occur at a range of sizes, dependent on the depth.

The Southeastern conifer forests are a temperate coniferous forest ecoregion of the southeastern United States. It is the largest conifer forest ecoregion east of the Mississippi River.

The Southern coastal plain nonriverine basin swamp is a wetland system found along the southern Atlantic coastal plain and the eastern Gulf coastal plain, and extending into the Florida peninsula. These wetlands occur in large, seasonally flooded depressions away from rivers. Sites are often forested by trees including bald cypress, swamp tupelo, evergreen shrubs, and hardwoods. Slash pine is sometimes found. Characteristic shrubs include buckwheat tree, swamp cyrilla, fetterbush lyonia, and laurelleaf greenbrier.

The Southern coastal plain oak dome and hammock is a forest type occurring in small patches in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. These forests consist of thick stands of evergreen oaks on shallow depressions or slight hills. They are distinct from their surrounding habitats, which are often woodlands dominated by longleaf pine.

The east Gulf coastal plain near-coast pine flatwoods are forests and woodlands found in the eastern Gulf coastal plain, in the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi. They take the form of forests and woodlands on broad, sandy flatlands. Fires are naturally frequent, occurring every one to four years.

The east Gulf coastal plain large river floodplain forest is a type of forested wetland found in the eastern and upper Gulf coastal plain, in the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee. In particular, these forests can be found along the Apalachicola, Alabama, Tombigbee, Pascagoula, and Pearl rivers.

The south Florida cypress dome is a forested wetland plant community found in southern Florida, mostly in and around the Everglades and the Big Cypress National Preserve. They form in shallow depressions whose impervious substrates hold standing water for several months of the year.

Lyonia fruticosa, the poor-grub or coastal plain staggerbush, is a plant species native to the US states of Florida, southern Georgia and the extreme southern part of South Carolina. It grows in pine woodlands and shrub bogs at elevations less than 100 meters.

References

1 2 3 "Southern Coastal Plain Nonriverine Cypress Dome". NatureServe Explorer. Retrieved 17 January 2013.

Southern coastal plain nonriverine cypress dome

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