Let's Root for Our Forest

Our forests don’t display the palette found farther north, but they do prove fall’s arrival as surely as the mountain maples. Southwest Florida boasts the largest stand of virgin bald cypress in the world, and when the days grow shorter in October, the cypress drops its needles as dependably as the hardwoods display their color.

Nothing gaudy here: The cypress goes straight to bare-limbed in winter mode. But in spring, it’s also the first to fill out with soft green needles. In her epic book, The Everglades: River of Grass, Marjory Stoneman Douglas called the towering giant cypress "most strangely beautiful." And the best place to see them in any season is at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, 20 miles from Naples.

Why more people don’t appreciate those woods remains a mystery to Ed Carlson, who’s going on his 40th year as the sanctuary’s director. "People go to Muir Woods [near San Francisco] all the time to see the giant redwoods, and they leave very happy," Carlson says. "Here, most people walk through this beautiful forest of cypress, and if they don’t see wildlife, they’re disappointed."

Corkscrew is a textbook example of a swamp—different from the Everglades—so the individual elements are overpowered by the complexity of the whole. Lush ferns, drapes of Spanish moss, deep greens playing against dark shadows and sparkling water highlighted by shafts of sunlight create a visual overload.

At eye level, the cypress are mere trunks, rising like gray, fluted columns in a cathedral, solid as stone. You have to look up to see the limbs of the giant trees. Some of Corkscrew’s trees are 600 years old, still standing where they sprouted before Europeans arrived. More than 130 feet tall, with trunks up to seven feet in diameter and roots spread deep and wide, their tops may break off in a strong wind, but even a hurricane can’t blow them down.

And this cypress forest covers about 700 acres. Sound large? Yes and no. It’s the largest one left in the world, but not for lack of people trying to level it. Cypress is a highly prized building material. While the giant trees were once common in Florida, logging operations in the first half of the 20th century decimated the old forests. Then came a national campaign in the 1950s backed by the National Audubon Society to save the cypress trees. The forest’s value as a bird rookery was recognized, but the trees themselves were the driving force. Money was raised and several logging companies agreed to sell or donate 2,500 acres of untouched cypress forest to Audubon for preservation.

Like so much else in Florida, the things that made cypress attractive also caused its near-extinction. "Cypress is a beautiful, wonderful wood," says Howard Wheeler, owner of Chris-Tel construction company, which specializes in historic restoration. "It has a beautiful color and grain, it’s easy to work with, and it doesn’t rot."

He used cypress for doors, windows and trim on the historic Thomas Edison home in Fort Myers, and he chose cypress to finish his own home several years ago, relying on a small cache he’d set aside. Frank Lloyd Wright was also a big fan of cypress, and used it extensively in his buildings. Older houses with cypress tout it as a selling point. A historic Captiva home, built in the 1930s, was recently on the market for $6 million, with its cypress beams and trim listed as a special feature.

Once a common material, cypress is now prohibitively expensive. Fifty years ago, 1,000 board feet of cypress cost $20. Now it runs close to $4 for a single foot. "When I hear about an old place being demolished that might have some cypress, I’m like a dog after a bone," Wheeler says. "I go dig up whatever I can get."

Cypress can be grown, and makes a lovely yard tree. But cultivated trees never develop the beautiful grains that make them so desirable for lumber, and the virgin wild supplies, especially in Florida, were logged out years ago.

The danger to cypress now is more insidious, and especially frustrating to environmentalists and fine carpenters: Mulch. Some Florida municipalities have banned it, but not Lee County and not Collier County, where you can find cypress mulch in most landscape supply stores. But buyers aren’t getting what they think, say Carlson and other experts. The young cypress used for mulch lacks the size, and the rot and insect resistance that made it so valued for building, "It would be a lot better if people would use some other wood, like melaleuca, for mulch," Carlson says, singling out the hated invader that’s crowded out many native Florida plants. Although buyers fear melaleuca mulch will sprout, experts say the chips are treated to prevent growth.

Call me a tree-hugger, but the idea of using the magnificent cypress for mulch—especially in South Florida, where a sizable tree is a prized commodity, and when there are other fine substitutes—is hard to get my arms around. The moss-draped giants at Corkscrew don’t invite hugging, though. They’re too awe-inspiring, too grand. You might as well think about hugging the Queen of England, or some ancient and revered emperor. People inevitably draw the cathedral comparison when talking about redwoods or cypress. But they stand more permanent than any man-made center of contemplation. Rulers of the forest.