Sea grapes on the Beach Hammock Trail: Hugh Taylor Birch State Park. This was once an unbroken canopy.

I’m exploring natural areas in Broward County for my new “Exploring Florida’s Botanical Wonders” and am saddened to see the extent of Hurricane Wilma’s destruction on the natural habitats in this area. Certainly, we saw what happened in urban areas, it was all over the news. But in the “backcountry” of Broward, the mighty giants have fallen. At Hugh Taylor Birch, the canopy is gone. Ditto at the Bonnet House, where they lost the grand champion paradise tree and virtually all of the canopy of live oaks, sea grapes, ficus, poinciana, and gumbo limbo. At Snake Warrior Island, the ficus showed signs of hurricane trim, while Fern Forest was downright heartbreaking in the loss of the cypress forest along Cypress Creek. The boardwalk remains closed, although the rest of the park is bouncing back. The good news is that nature always rebounds. And given the sunshine, the humidity, the tropical clime, these trees will flourish once again.

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