On my visit to New Orleans and Baton Rouge in Louisiana in October-November 2004, I came to know the reason why the Gulf Coast, the East Coast in the U.S and the Bay of Bengal side of the Indian Peninsula-the East Coast are taking such a battering in recent years from hurricanes. This is because the people drained the swamps, killed the swamp cypresses or the mangrove trees and the associated vegetation. They used the wood of the cypress or the mangroves to set up their townships and agricultural enterprises.
read my story of the great Cypress swamps....
CYPRESS
The Cypress wood is lasting. Also it has a hundred thousand year or more fossil history! They live longest and attain the largest size.
Lets now learn about the Cypress through Haikus:5-7-5!
BALD CYPRESS
Cypress invades land!
Takes root in river mud flats:
Lives for centuries.
Vivid green in spring
Trunks and branches solemn looking,
Young trunks reddish brown.
Old trunks almost grey,
Loses its needles in fall,
Bald means deciduous!
Including the twigs.
The ones with needles fall off,
Needles still attached!
The knees of Cypress
Part submerged trees' root system,
Two meters cone height.
Three species genus:
Taxodium trees
Distichum dam one,
Ascendens dam two,
Mucranotum Cypress three!
Yes, three dam species.
The bald cypresses
The only species native
North American.
CYPRESS SWAMPS
Maslowski narrates:
Ohio nineteenfifties!
(Doctor MA Rau was there!)
Father built a pier
Sturdy and meant for swimming;
For a small pond our.
Over time nature
Extracted its useful life,
And in the early
Nineteen eighties they
Reconstructed it:Cinder/
Blocks disintegrate!/
The steel had rusted!
Phone poll sized wooden beams had
Thoroughly rotted!
Top decking the only
Salvagable pier part!
Oh!It was Cypress dear!
This-the swamp cypress,
Seemed as solid as the day,
It had been put on...
It clutched nails tightly,
Not a sign of rot was there,
Wonder of wonders!
Used Cypress it was!
When it became the pier part!
The wood was salvaged
From a dismantled
Water tank by my father;
The township made room
For a larger one,
The age of the old Cypress
God only can tell!
We humans sunbathe
On the pier ignorant of
The cypress planks' age!
WILDLIFE IN SWAMPS
South Florida swamps
Best birding and bird photos
On the continent.
From salamanders
Turtles to alligators
Abundant in swamps!
Swamps all settlers feared!
Though many admired the swamps!
Thrilling to conquer!
Devastating swamps!
Settlers drained the swamps over!
To grow their food crops.
They hacked cypresses
For timber of immense worth
Large trees became scarce!
THE WORTH OF CYPRESS
Resistant to wear
Cypress the wood eternal
Drinking water pipes!
Shingles still protect
Home outsides for centuries
Wood-easy to work!
Old and young cypress
Get pecky cypress disease
A fungus attack!
CYPRESS WORTHLESS ONLY TO SOME
Eats away the wood
Sparing only outer shell
Worthless as lumber!
Shakes is twisted grain
Valueless trees left standing
The cause is windstress!
But pecky cypressed
Wood panelling full of holes
Valued ornament!
Solid cypress knees
But knees with pecky cypress
Hollow but useful
Hollow knees beehives!
Hollow knees used as buckets!
Cypress with disease!
CYPRESS BEAUTIFUL
Knees best develop
On root systems under flood
For long periods!
Knees,buttressed bases
Aerate cypress root systems
Tupelos' too do
Wet ground tupelos
Show above ground root systems
Coils and arches.
Tupelos' arched roots
Bring oxygen to starved trees
In poorly drained soils.
Knees and buttressing
Help anchor more securely
Making trees stable
Knees tend to grow up
To mean high-water level
Trees by river beds.
Short kneed cypress trees
Found in little flooded spots
True in all swamps seen.
DAMS AND CYPRESS KNEES!
Trees' knees ten feet tall
Tall knees along Santee
Dead because of dam
Upstream of Santee
A dam eliminated
Predam era floods!
SEED PROPAGATION
Cypress seeds twenty
Ripen in globular cones!
And fall on rivers!
Seeds and cones afloat
The harvest carried away!
To sprout somewhere down.
Seeds propagated
By vanished parakeets!
Called Carolina!
The birds ate the seeds
Used Cypress to roost and rest
They migrated!
Seeds passing through tracts
Would be excreted away!
On to a new swamp
WOOD DUCKS HELP!
Beautiful wood duck
Distributes Cypress seeds far
All the time in swamps!
In the duck's diet
Cypress seeds form a staple
The duck still alive!
Cypresses' presence
In man-made reservoirs
Owes to wood duck's acts!
MATURITY A LONG JOURNEY!
Maturity is
A long journey for Cypress
Grows a foot a year!
Lightning has destroyed
Cypress which has survived all
The other hazards!
Above canopy
Tall cypress vulnerable
Many hits to kill!
Resisting strong winds
Cypress rules supreme in swamps
Deep tap root anchor!
Horizontal roots
Pinned down by the knees,withstand
Hurricanes countless.
Whose wood lasts and lasts
Cypress eternally charms
Lives harmonious!
MALARIA MAN MADE!
The less the swamp is
Altered by man and his stock
Fewer mosquitoes!
Okefenokee!
Swamp rain-filled cattle hoof marks
Mosquitoes bred in!
Mosquito larvae
Were safe from attack by fish
Okefenokee!
South Carolina
Four holes swamp recently cut
Mosquitoes abound!
They found ideal
Watery ruts for breeding
Heavy machine made!
Swamp's uncut portions
Striking lack of mosquitoes!
Leave the swamp alone!
Swamp malaria!
Was prevalent in the South
Was origin swamp?
R. Ashok Kumar,9 November 2004,Chandler
Reference:Dennis,John V.1988.The Great Cypress Swamps.Photographs by Steve Maslowski.Louisiana State University Press,Baton Rouge and London.