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)
Read more about this topic: Wildlife Of Bermuda
Famous quotes containing the word plants:
“And time brings down what is both strong and tall.
But plants new set to be eradicate,
And buds new blown, to have so short a date,
Is by his hand alone that guides nature and fate.”
—Anne Bradstreet (c. 1612–1672)
“So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.”
—Bible: New Testament, 1 Corinthians 3:7-9.
“What I did not yet know so intensely was the hatred of the white American for the black, a hatred so deep that I wonder if every white man in this country, when he plants a tree, doesn’t see Negroes hanging from its branches.”
—Jean Genet (1910–1986)