Freshwater swamp forests, or flooded forests, are forests which are inundated with freshwater, either permanently or seasonally. They normally occur along the lower reaches of rivers and around freshwater lakes. Freshwater swamp forests are found in a range of climate zones, from boreal through temperate and subtropical to tropical.
In the Amazon Basin of Brazil, a seasonally flooded forest is known as a várzea, a use that now is becoming more widespread for this type of forest in the Amazon (though generally spelled varzea when used in English). Igapó, another word used in Brazil for flooded Amazonian forests, is also sometimes used in English. Specifically, varzea refers to whitewater-inundated forest, and igapo to blackwater-inundated forest.
Peat swamp forests are swamp forests where waterlogged soils prevent woody debris from fully decomposing, which over time creates a thick layer of acidic peat.
Famous quotes containing the words swamp and/or forest:
“Towns oftener swamp one than carry one out onto the big ocean of life.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“A township where one primitive forest waves above while another primitive forest rots below,—such a town is fitted to raise not only corn and potatoes, but poets and philosophers for the coming ages. In such a soil grew Homer and Confucius and the rest, and out of such a wilderness comes the Reformer eating locusts and wild honey.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)