The Understory: A weekly nature column

Among the undergrowth of sandy pine forests and the mossy crevices of wooded limestone outcroppings, dwells an unassuming yet fascinating plant known as the Coontie. By name alone, the Coontie (pronounced coon-tee) conjures up a host of potential identities but at first glance, it is an unassuming member of a distinct and ancient lineage of seed baring plants known as Cycads. Cycads have grown on Earth for the last 350 million years but in modern times, they are less diverse and constricted to warmer latitudes than their Jurassic heyday.

Superficially, Coonties resemble a cross between a fern and a palm tree but are related to neither and never attain a tall woody trunk as some cycads do. They remain squatty and produce a brown to reddish cone during the late summer breeding months. Coonties are dieoecious, gymnosperms, meaning the plants have separate sexes of male and female, with females producing seeds that are not covered by a fruit. Males produce a peculiar rusty brown, elongated cone, similar in appearance to a red ear of Indian corn that emits the pollen. Female cones have an altogether different look to them with their dark brown color and stubby appearance. Similar to a cross between a fat pine cone and a hand grenade with hexagon shaped scales, the female cones grow until they pop open, scattering seeds about the ground for germination. Pollen cones and scattered seeds attract a host of native wildlife, including butterflies, beetles, moths, mammals and birds. The leaves and steams of this plant are not only unappealing as a food source, they are also dangerously toxic to the central nervous system and are never consumed by man or beast.

Coonties are capiable plants and can grow in all sorts of strange places that animals have carried their seeds. They can tolerate the poorest quality soils and even grow in the weathered pockets of limestone rock walls. The secret of the Coontie’s survival comes from the symbiotic relationship they have with a microscopic fungus called Mycorrhizae that enables their root system to uptake nitrogen and phosphorous much easier. The roots of the Coontie are large and produce a starchy tuber useful to the people of Florida for thousands of years.

The exact occurrence that lead some curious or desperate person to investigate the edibility of this plant is unfortunately lost to history. However, word spread among the ancient cultures of Florida and the West Indies that a rigorous grinding, washing, soaking and boiling regiment of the Coontie’s root system removed the deadly toxins. The water was poured off along with a toxic slurry, leaving a white paste behind. Once the thick paste was allowed to dry and ferment for a few days, a quality and palatable starch for baking was attained. When the European Settlers arrived in the New World, this knowledge was passed on and to this day, some specialty grocers carry packaged flour for cooking, marketed under the alias “Arrowroot” flour.

Every now and then, reports surface of some unlucky baker who prepared Coontie flour improperly and was discovered dead in the kitchen. Because of such a risk, the baking of Coontie bread is best left to the professionals or the most wary culinary-minded gardener. Nevertheless, the bread is pretty good but all things considered, I’ll stick to sour dough.

The Fish Who Came Out of the Water (Short Version)

Once upon a time, a very special fish did something very unfishlike and changed the world forever. Somewhere in the annals of time, approximately 360 million years ago, a group of fish faced with a seemingly impossible dilemma devised an answer that would lead them from their shrinking seasonal pools and onto the land- a place where no vertebrate animal had ever gone before. In the late Devonian period, the climate could be categorized into two distinct seasons- the wet and the dry. During the dry season, the freshwater pools these special fish called home were subject to evaporation and increasingly diminished oxygen levels as warm murky waters became hotter and muddier. Pools that teemed with life in the wet season became smaller and smaller as evaporation shrank them down to puddles.

Life in the shrinking polls was hard- many fish trapped with no access to deeper, cleaner waters merely died. Beset with such problems of survival, the fish species of 360 million years ago had to develop adaptive responses if they were going to survive. Some fish dealt with the poor oxygen levels by equipping themselves with a highly vascularized fleshy pouch not unlike a lung, which afforded them the ability to gulp atmospheric oxygen from the surface and assimilate it into their blood stream for metabolic functions. The air gulping fish that dwelt in shallow pools found that their novel adaptation could save them from poor oxygen levels but it could not save them from desiccation. Many of these adaptive fish still died as their pools dried and cracked under the relentless baking sun.

One group of specialized fish, the Sarcopterygians, possessed a mixture of adaptations that the air gulping fish lacked. Sarcopterygians had modified their fins into fleshy lobed limbs complete with boney digits that resembled a hand stuffed into a webbed glove with short stubby fingers. Their bodies were a bit stockier and some were squatty and elongated, possessing a physique more like that of a big salamander than a fish. Their fins were no longer used for swimming- rather the Sarcopterygians of the shallow seasonal pools used their primitive limbs to crawl about the bottom and prop themselves up to the surface to effortlessly gulp air for precious oxygen. This body plan proved successful and in time the air gulping Sarcopterygians survived while other species died and became extinct. By the late Devonian period, the stage was set for this special group of fish to take those awkward modified fins to the next level of specialization.

Armed with a lung-like vascularized bladder for gulping air, a head capiable of rotating on its axis, finger-like boney digits, four strong limbs and a sturdy build, the Sarcopterygian fish were ready to conquer a new medium different from anything they (or any vertebrate) had ever faced before. Faced with a slow death from desiccation and heat, one tenacious individual soon discovered through a instance of desperate necessity, that its fleshy limbs could not only be used to drag itself out of the shrinking pools, they could also be used to lurch across the arid land in search of deeper waters. The primitive lung once used in tandem with gills, proved adequate to transmit oxygen into the blood and dispel carbon dioxide as a waste product. Once this monumental exodus proved successful, the Sarcopterygian fish were destined to continue their transition- becoming less of a fish and more of an amphibian-like creature. Natural selection and environmental pressures had afforded this special clade of fish a particular set of conditions that allowed them and them alone to survive in a world of drought. The Sarcopterygians would diversify rapidly because they alone passed on their genetic information while former competitors turned to dust in a desolate wasteland of dry pools. In time, this special ability to leave the water in search of better habitats would promote the Sarcopterygians to make the full transition into the terrestrial tetrapods.

If all of this fish out of water business seems too fantastical to be true, one need only look the very hands we were born with. The human hand possesses the same five digits our fishy ancestors had and regardless of the modifications we may have made to that original salamander-like body plan, we are still considered tetrapods just like those first brave emergent fish that first lurched their way out of a murky drying pool so many millions of years ago.

By the 16^th century, the indigenous people of Florida had reached a new pinnacle of artistic expression, cultural complexity and population size. When European explorers first arrived in Florida, the indigenous population probably numbered in the hundreds of thousands. The map above illustrates the location and general appearance of some of Florida’s most encountered tribes. In reality, there were probably dozens more tribes not pictured on the map that operated as individual colonies across Florida. Unfortunately, as the Europeans began a campaign of extermination against the inhabitants of the new world, many smaller tribes assimilated into larger ones or disappeared altogether.

A short look at Martin County Florida and the historic wreck of the Reformation.

On the morning of September 23 1696, when the rain had let up and the wind had died down, Jonathan Dickinson, a 33-year-old Quaker merchant emerged from deep within the flooded wreckage of his Barkentine ship to have a look around. The previous night, at around 1:00 in the morning, Jonathan Dickinson, his wife, infant son, fellow Quakers and their eleven slaves and sailing crew had been startled by the most terrible of sounds, the sound of their ship running aground. What had began the previous day as an ordinary Atlantic thunderstorm had grown in severity and blackened the sky. The tempest dumped a torrent of rain onto the worried crew as the sea churned and tossed the three masted ship upon the sea. Adrift in the torrential downpour, their ship unknowingly crept closer and closer to the cloaked shoreline that lay hidden in blackness. The Atlantic would come to claim their ship that morning as a victim of the hidden shallows.

As the ship, the Reformation sat disabled with her belly pressed against the sand and rocks that night, the sea took pity on her crew and did not dismantle the wooden ship. Massive waves pounded the deck washing cargo overboard, into the sea. The sails were shredded to rags and the hull was flooded with rain and salty storm surge. In the chaos, the pigs and sheep they had brought on their journey were torn from their pens on deck and dragged into the depths. The hapless creatures either swam for their lives toward shore or drowned. Unable to do anything but huddle together and wait, the 24 passengers of the shipwreck of the Reformation hid within their cabins and weathered the storm

At day brake the scene was grim. Jonathan Dickinson and his crew emerged to find their ship beyond repair, stranded and wrecked on a desolate beach dotted with few trees and no sign of human inhabitation. Upon the deck, devoid of cargo, dozens of dead sea birds lay twisted and broken, piled among the wreckage. In the night they had tried to find shelter from the storm among the wayward ship- a decision that would prove their demise as the tempest tossed them about the hard wood deck, beating them to death. For the 24 survivors of the wreck of the Reformation, the empty seashore was a heart-breaking scene. Though they thanked God to have survived the storm and the grounding of their ship, the odds of their survival on such a desolate coast when having lost so many of their provisions was grim.

Exactly one month earlier, on the 23^rd of August 1696, the Reformation had set sail from Port Royal Jamaica bound for Philadelphia Pennsylvania. Jonathan Dickinson, a young Quaker merchant born in Jamaica had charted the vessel to transport his family, fellow Quakers and 11 slaves to start a new life among the colonies of America where he had hoped to further establish his families business. He had not intended the journey to end as it did.

When the Reformation left port that summer, heading north, it did so as part of a convoy. England and France were in the midst of a bloody war that summer of 1696 as their empires groped out across the Atlantic and into the New World. In those days, it was not uncommon for a non-military vessel to fall pray to either fleet. However, as the convoy sailed through the straits of Cuba, the ships became separated and the Reformation was left behind in the shifting winds. Alone, adrift in the currents, the crew could do little to change their situation as the convoy crossed the horizon and disappeared off into the distance. In time the wind regained its force and the eager crew hoped to sail alone further north adjacent to the then poorly mapped coast of La Florida. From there they could catch the mighty gulf stream and sail back into the Atlantic on a northward course for Philadelphia. Unfortunately, this was not meant to be. The ship and crew would never see the Northeastern port it set sail for that month. All it would take was one bad storm and their lives would be changed forever. The Reformation, doomed by the summer storms, would come to rest its hull on the rock and sand of the poorly mapped coast of South Florida.

Left with little food and no ship, the Quaker merchant Jonathan Dickinson ordered his crew, most of whom were sick with fever or injuries, to begin gathering anything and everything that may be of use. Chests of wet clothing and pieces of the tattered sail were brought to shore along with pieces of the splintered masts and hull for use as firewood once they dried in the muggy heat. With the use of a small rowboat spared by the storm, the 24 survivors began their journey to shore and unwillingly became some the first Europeans to set foot on what is known today as Jupiter Island. To a foreigner this narrow strip of land, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and a impassible thicket of tangled mangroves to the west, must have seemed like an deserted island. Rather, the site of the shipwreck of the Barkentine Reformation sits atop an ancient shoreline compacted into rock itself by the unstoppable three- time, the weather and the sea. Even a mile or more inland, shells, sharks teeth and whale bones could be discovered as evidence of the watery past this area had hidden in scrubby vegetation.

In time, the entire crew made it to shore and began the arduous task of creating shelter and building a fire. Jonathan Dickinson, his family, their slaves, fellow Quakers and crew were fortunate to be alive. Over the next 300 years the same coast line that had claimed their vessel would come to claim so many thousands of lives and dozens of vessels filled to the brim with looted treasure from South, Central and North America- all pillaged by the Spanish Conquistadors. This graveyard of riches and sailors lost at sea eventually lead to the east coast of Florida being title the “treasure coast”, a name still used today.

Unfortunately for the survivors, their gratitude to God for being spared would be short lived.

From afar in the distance of the desolate shoreline, two figures appeared and charged closer and closer, running at full speed- furious and screaming. The two men, clad in only a crude straw garment covering their genitalia, were unmistakably natives of this poorly charted land of La Florida. The natives had most likely spotted the ship earlier that morning and had only now, nine hours after the Reformation had come to rest, arrived to investigate. The natives had a dismal aspect to them, they screamed, running at full speed howling with saliva and sweat frothing from their dehydrated mouths. Each carried a large Spanish knife most likely gained from previous trade or bloodshed with violent explorers.

As soon as these hysterical natives reached the crew, still busy unloading their flooded provisions, they groped at the men- pulling at their clothes while shrieking. Horrified, the crew armed with muskets scrambled for their guns to dispatch the savages. It was in that moment, the young Quaker merchant Jonathan Dickinson made a decision that would not only come to save the lives of his family but seal this tale of shipwreck on the Florida coast in fame, forever.

Jonathan Dickinson confidently ordered that not a single shot be fired and no physical resistance of any kind be used against the natives. He and his party would not resist with violence outright. Dickinson was a Quaker- a devoutly religious man who put his complete faith and destiny in the hands of God the Father, almighty. If it was God’s will to have the natives torture and kill his party then so be it. If it were God’s will to shield them from harm in his protecting providence, then they would all survive and he would rest his bones back in Philadelphia and not on this forsaken shore. Such a bold act of faith and religious piety kept the natives from reacting violently as well. As the two natives grunted and shuffled among the terrified crew, they continued to murmur and sputter to one another. Finally, Jonathan Dickinson gave them some tobacco and a small pipe that they snatched with eagerness. Now appeased, the natives took off into the undergrowth as quickly as they had arrived leaving the castaways to prepare themselves for the almost certain demise they would face upon the natives eventual return. Yet, when the natives did return, in much greater numbers, they did not harm the wayward visitors. Instead, the natives, members of the Jaega or Jobe’ people, rounded up the group and lead them off into the strange and foreign land of 17^th century swampy Florida.

By the close of the 17^th century, Florida had been known to the West for the last 183 years. The discovery by the famed Conquistador, Juan Ponce de Leon, introduced the humid subtropical peninsula to the Spanish Empire after his landing on Melbourne Beach on April 2^nd, 1515. By the time Jonathan Dickinson arrived upon the desolate shore of what would one day become known as Jupiter Island, located in Martin County Florida, La Florida was still largely unmapped, unexplored, uninhabited, malaria ridden wilderness.

Some 200 years later, this malaria-ridden wilderness was still not getting all the respect it deserves but it was getting a little. Only now, in the 21^st century is Florida fully recognized as the jewel of natural beauty filled with so many different types of bugs, frogs, shrubs, orchids and reptiles that occur no where else on Earth. Florida embodies so many aspects of nature’s beauty that it is truly a connoisseur’s delight of natural curiosities. The Peninsula harbors a diverse world of living and non living things that come together to form a mosaic of habitats that support an interconnected system where nutrients and energy is produced, utilized and recycled in a wondrous balance of self regulation. In Florida there are over 1,000+ types of fish, 30,000+ land dwelling invertebrates, 700 land dwelling vertebrates, 4,000 native trees and shrubs and 100 types of orchids, just to name a few. Most amazing of all however is how so many creatures managed to stake out a living in a place that is so comparatively young to other places on Earth. Florida is a land that was only birthed by the sea a mere 25 million years ago, when horses were still the size of small dogs and whales did not yet swim in the sea…

When I find myself alone, standing in the scrub of a pine forest on the east coast of Florida…. with the wind blowing through the buttons of my pea coat and the curls of my black hair- I think of the sea and all its mysteries. I think of the power of the churning, dark ocean and how life, in all its infinite and wondrous forms, can trace all origins back to the depths of this great and wide sea. And sure enough, if one were to scrape their boots into the sandy soils and dig their heels into the earth- you will find the corpse of the sea.

At one time, the thousands of inland oyster shells, clams, shark teeth, and marine snails found throughout the entirety of inland Florida gave credence to the biblical story of a great world wide flood and the humble passage of Noah and his great ship. Yet, today we know the story is much longer and far more epic to be contained in the short history of mankind. Florida is Atlantis in reverse- a tropical paradise that has risen up from the depths with the help of the creatures who made Florida their home.

Over the last 65 million years, the peninsula has been forced up from the ocean as plate tectonics and the unstoppable push of the mid-ocean ridge dragged the contents to their modern positions. What was once the desolate bottom of the Atlantic soon began to be pushed up from the abyssal plane towards the surface. Over millions of years, the slowly rising bump on the sea floor began accumulating eroded sediments from the Appalachian Mountains. To this day, most of the sand found on Florida beaches comes from the weathering of the oldest mountains in North America- the mighty Appalachians. As the sea floor rose and sand was deposited, small patches of land began to break the surface. Marine animal life quickly began to colonize the new habitat and make the infant sunshine state a home for the first time.

On land, dune vegetation and palms were probably the first emergent vegetation to colonize early Florida. Yet, it was life in the sea, which had the greatest impact on the formation of Florida. The stony coals, animals and ancient relatives of jellyfish who evolved armored skeletons of calcium to shield their stinging polyps, found the warm waters and shallows to be perfect for establishing massive colonies of coral reefs. With the constant fluctuation of sea levels, the coral reefs were killed off by the fleeing tides and rebuilt by the inundation of land. Over millions of years of stony coral death and reestablishment, the state of Florida was gifted a limestone bedrock that could be colonized by larger and more complex life forms…..

Our Earth, the precious blue gem of space and the sole place where life exists in the universe, is a dynamic planet. Our blue planet is always changing and regardless of the affairs of humankind the planet will continue to change until the sun swells so large that it engulfs our entire universe in a fiery cloud of burning gas. Florida is no different. The state came up from the sea, it weathered in the ebb and flow of the tides, baked in the heat of the sun, became a desert so vast it connected to Texas and flooded into a green and tropical swamp we see today. There were once mammoths here, strange long necked camels, giant ground sloths and saber tooth cats….. there were once our nomadic ancestors too- hunter gatherers that walked across the entire country from Russia over the bearing strait. Now they are gone- their descendants given small pox by Europeans or enslaved for labor and farming. Florida has suffered many changes and almost none as dramatic as the last 500 years of European occupation. Florida is now an urban wasteland- a clogged and polluted concrete ghost of what it once was. The real paradise in the sun, the real happiest place on earth, the natural tourist destination of the whole world- was destroyed the day Ponce de Leon set foot on Melbourne beach that fateful April 2nd, 1513. From then on, Florida explorers were destined to fight their way through the concrete jungle as much as the pine flat woods and cypress swamps.

Join us on our adventure through the grit and dirt of urbanism as we try and reclaim the real Florida from the quickly fleeting past. This is The Florida Experience.

There is no place on earth quite like Florida. Ever since the first nomadic tribes of native wanders entered the peninsula some 20,000 years ago, the sub-tropical paradise has afforded explorers as much adventure as it has danger. Today “La Florida”, the land of flowers, alligators, mangroves, cypress trees and Spanish moss, remains fruitful with adventures just waiting to be had. There is no place on earth quite like Florida.

We at The Florida Experience have dedicated ourselves to exploring the urban, suburban and wild places of Florida in search of the truth behind such a unique and dynamic place. We go where others do not tread and seek the places many do not know. Not only do we supply you with a place for information about the cultural and natural history of the state, we also provide you with the knowledge and know how you need to break away from the mold and seek the truth about this beautiful and endangered place. This is your one stop electronic resource for everything Florida. From the black asphalt streets to the anoxic mud of mangrove swamps - get ready to have The Florida Experience.