Wildlife of Bermuda - Plants

Plants

Over 1000 species of vascular plant are found on the islands, the majority of which are introduced. Of the 165 native species, 15 are endemic.

At the time of the first human settlement, by shipwrecked English sailors in 1593, Bermuda was dominated by forests of Bermuda Cedar with mangrove swamps on the coast. Clearance of planting began immediately and by the 1830s, the shipbuilding industry had denuded the landscape, but the forest was able to recover. In the 1940s the cedar forests were devastated by introduced scale insects which killed roughly 8 million trees. Replanting using resistant trees has taken place since then but the area covered by cedar is still only 10% of what it formerly was. Another important component of the original forest was Bermuda Palmetto, a small palm tree which now only grows in a few small patches, notably at Paget Marsh. Other trees and shrubs include Bermuda Olivewood and Bermuda Snowberry. The climate also allows for the growth of other palms such as royal palms and coconuts palms, although the lack of very warm temperatures does not usually allow coconuts to fruit properly. Bermuda is the farthest north in the northern hemisphere that coconut palms will grow naturally.

There are remnant patches of mangrove swamp around the coast and at some inland sites including Hungry Bay Mangrove Swamp and Mangrove Lake, where Black Mangrove and Red Mangrove are the northernmost mangroves in the Atlantic. The inland swamps are particularly interesting as mangroves thrive in salty water, in this case provided through underground channels rather than the usual tidal wash of coastal mangrove swamps. There are also areas of peat marsh including Devonshire Marsh, Pembroke Marsh, and Paget Marsh.

Bermuda has four endemic ferns: Bermuda Maidenhair Fern, Bermuda Shield Fern (Goniopteris bermudiana), Bermuda Cave Fern (Ctenitis sloanei) and Governor Laffan's Fern (Diplazium laffanianum). The latter is extinct in the wild but is grown at Bermuda Botanical Gardens. The endemic flora of the island also includes two mosses, ten lichens and forty fungi.

Among the many introduced species are the Beach Sheoak (Casuarina equisetifolia) and Surinam Cherry (Eugenia uniflora)