Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 February 1885 — The Mangrove and Oyster in Western Florida. [ARTICLE]

The Mangrove and Oyster in Western Florida.

I am inclined to believe, in the economy of nature, so far as constructive process goes, the mangrove, in combination with the oyster, has had much to do with.the building up of this western fringe of Florida. There is that factor of resistance or obstruction to a passage which renders a mangrove . thicket impossible to traverse savfe by raccoons, snakes, or birds. Starting in a delicate way„ with a single thin, pliant stalk right in the salt-water, after a while, when the mangrove grows to some four or five feet high, it throws down suckers from its trunk or branches, which meet the waters again. -In time, the suckers being all around, the main trunk seems to hitch itself clear out of the water,. and to stand upon its lower branches like a chevaldejrise. Now suppose a manufacturer of gas fixtures had made a hundred big candelabra, and had stacked them in a disorderly way in a large room, the main pipes upward, and the crooks and querls of the branches on the floor. If you were requested to walk across that room you never could do it You can fight through an alder thicket, but never through a groth of mangroves. I do not think sufficient importance has been given to the role the oyster plays in conjunction with these trees. Wuenthe mangrove grows on the oUjter edge of the water-line, and drops its . aerial roots, no sooner are these at the surface than at once the spat of the raccoon oyster finds a lodgement, for there can be no waters so charged with life as those in these warm seas. Ostrea parasitica nature originated to weight down the mangrove and anchor it in place. These oysters accumulate, growing in bunches as big as a man’s head. In time these run through the cycle of oyster life, die, and drop from their branch, and fall in the shallow water. The calcareous portions of the shells dissolve in part, but some of the debris, with the silicious matter remains. A little more soft under water is made, and here will sprout another mangrove, certain in time to have its oyster appendages. It looks to me as if the trees on the very outer edge of the clump show greater activity in this double vegetable and molluscan life than the trees on the inside. Growth, then, seems to be arrested at certain points in this dual system; and to be „ advanced at others. One, two, or three 'k of these thickets are separated, and may remain apart for years; then a seed falls, 1 finds its proper depth, a new mangrove rises, and another and another, and the many islands become one. Mangroves are always growing, oysters depositing, thbn perishing, the shells dropping, and so nature’s laws of life and death are balanced, and make up that grand everlasting harmony.— Barnet Phili ps, in Harper’s Magazine.