Just how big is Fakahatchee Strand?
Even the grass that lines the road to get there is giant.
This is no ordinary sawgrass
which technically is a sedge (and not a grass at all) …
But rather a non-native intruder, although not all that invasive:
Better known as Elephant Grass.
My initial guess was sugar cane,
Perhaps an errant wind had blown it in …
Long ago a ranger once cut open a stalk of wild growing cane for me to taste (remarkably sweet) and I’ve seen it used as a wind break between vegetable crops in nearby farms.
Climbing up high to look over it,
I was reassured to see it stayed close to the lime rock road:
As tall as Elephant Grass grows,
it’s quixotically skittish of the deeper-watered
marl prairie that lies beyond.
That reminds me in a way of
of how deeper-water loving hyacinth (also an exotic)
can clogging up a canal completely …
But won’t budge even an inch into that very same marl prairie,
Not because it’s too deep but rather too shallow instead.
That sort of sums up the marl prairies:
Too wet for upland plants,
And too dry for aquatics.
