EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Each week a different image of our fascinating environment is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional ecologist.

30 December 2019 - 5 January 2020

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Spanish Drapery in the Forest

Spanish Moss (Tillandsia usneoides, Family Bromeliaceae)
on Baldcypress (Taxodium distichum, Family Cupressaceae)
Waccamaw River, South Carolina, USA

Credit & Copyright: Dr. Bruce G. Marcot

Explanation:  Well, last week many people were handing ornaments onto their conifer Christmas trees.  Meanwhile ... Momma Nature was busy with her own ornaments, including this well-known epiphyte adorning old-growth baldcypress trees here in the wetlands along the Waccamaw River near coastal South Carolina in the USA.

This adornment, of course, is Spanish moss.  

  

Spanish moss is, by the way, neither Spanish nor a moss.  It is a flowering plant akin to bromeliads that occupy the limbs of many subtropical and tropical trees.  

  

We visited this forest in a previous episode, exploring the effect of rising sea levels and climate change on this pristine wetland.

        
  
    

Next week's picture:  The Function and Fate of Mayflies

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Author & Webmaster: Dr. Bruce G. Marcot, Tom Bruce
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