ABSTRACT
Like all of southern Florida, the terrain of the Big Cypress Swamp is nearly flat, so that small variations in elevation make large differences to vegetation. Slightly higher than the Everglades, it has a maximum elevation of about 22 feet in the north, sloping almost to sea level in the south over a distance of 35 miles. More than in the Everglades, differences in elevation here are directly related to irregularities in the underlying bedrock, which greatly affect hydrology. The result is a range of plant communities from deep sloughs dotted with open ponds, to cypress swamps, to regions of countless cypress domes, to open marshes, pinelands, and hammocks. Variations in forest cover often make the region appear to have hills, in contrast to the flatness of the Everglades. It is obvious that the variety of plant communities in the Big Cypress is based in its more complex bedrock compared with the relatively simple Everglades bedrock, which lies mostly buried under peat (Figure 7.2).
