I’d like to introduce you to a Tupelo tree. Famous source for bees making Tupelo Honey…
These trees are along the Suwannee River up stream from Big Shoals.
The seeds take root along the shore of the river. Trees are often in a line. Later floods cause land to form behind the trees, and water on either side creating an island.
4 Likes
Wait! You have Monkeys in Florida?
Thanks to the old Jonny Weissmuller Tarzan shows. Between that and the Sliver Springs jungle cruise there are monkeys there . . . too hard to put them back in the box. 
Just one of the many invasive species that make that place home, New Yorkers are another. 
3 Likes
As I recall, the monkeys escaped from a lab and found they enjoyed Florida. Lots of them on the Silver.
The current info on that is that the guy who started the “Jungle Cruise”, Colonel Tooey, let them go on an island there in the 30’s and didn’t know that they can swim.
1 Like
According to the State Park…A developer at Silver Springs put some monkeys on an island in the Silver River (spring out flow river) . He failed in his research on the monkeys. The kind he was able to get were the lab kind…and they swim. Now monkeys are all over that forest in groups…with monkeys it might be “troops”. They were before, or at least seperate from the Tarzan movies. FWC goes in and thins them out when population gets too large. Consequently they are biologically a lot like humans and carry similar sicknesses. So best to keep clear of them. Besides they get fussy if you don’t feed them and they bite, scratch, etc.
Ive been paddling up & down many of Maryland’s waterways for years now. Last week while spooking along the Rhode River shoreline I was able to sneak up on a very large snapping turtle. Very prehistoric looking monster.
7 Likes
A couple photos from today’s paddle on Bogue Homa at Logtown MS (a ghost town thanks to over cutting cypress and primarily due to being near the Stennis Space Facility - space rocket tests performed nearby)
3 Likes
Although the pictured Phragmites australis are considered a highly invasive plant (in Maryland), they help create some pretty nice scenery. This is along Maryland’s Rhode River, south of Annapolis.
4 Likes
Interesting image
1 Like
Dang! Beautiful!
5 Likes
Wow! I love Redbuds! They just sing of spring. First saw them growing on the MSU campus. Tried growing one where I live, but too far north.
I’m glad that she’s sweet as Tupelo Honey,
but I hope her trunk is as it looks stalwart.
For if she was to unlimber on me
it bee by that leave next fall really hurt.
(where Van’s stuck not in mystic but dirt)
Just planted one yesterday.