PLANT-LIFE on the Lower Withlacoochee River

Indigenouse Aquatic Life: pondweed, widgeaon-grass, arrowhead, manatee grass, turtle grass, eel grass

Along the river, the logging industry controls much of the terrestrial plant life.

Shorelands or Riparian areas are the thin strips of land along waterways, reservoirs, coastlines where sub-surface moisture is present. The are great “transition zones” where land and water meet to form highly specialized environments. When healthy, they are home to unique and naturally highly productive ecosystems. Some benefits of healthy shorelands include the purification of water through a natural filtering process, the absorption of excess nutrients from the water, stabilization and protection of banks from erosion, provision of habitat and travel corridors for wildlife, and the support of fish spawning, rearing, and feeding habitats. www.livingbywater.ca/shorelands.pdf

While on the Withlacoochee, we should experience a lot of diversity: from dense hardwood forests with an understory of cabbage palm & saw palmetto to a low, flat swampland lined with cypress, gum, and maple trees adorned all over with airplants. Some websites cautioned that during dry seasons, paddlers may encounter log jams or hyacinth jams. We will also travel through hammocks of water weeds as well as highly landscaped domestic environments. All the diversity in vegetation is a reflection of the constantly changing terrain and the changing populations around the river.

One problem that native plant life encounters on the lower Withlacoochee (and all over) is the over-growth of algae in the water. Algae growth has exploded due to the excess of nutrients in the river. When algae becomes too dominant, it blocks sunlight for the native underwater plants (like freshwater seagrass) which are needed to maintain the wildlife of the river. Algae also lowers the oxygen level in the water. www.sjwmd.com

info on hygrophilia-a nasty water weed ( i think)
Florida
1960's: First recorded for Florida in 1965 along a roadside, north of Tampa (Les and Wunderlin 1981).
1970's: Next documented in1979 from canals in two new drainages 1) Able Canal (Les and Wunderlin 1981), draining the Caloosahatchee River in western Florida and 2) Miramar and City of Margate Canals (V. Vandiver, Univ of Florida, pers. comm.), part of the Everglades drainage in eastern Florida. 
1980's:During the 1980's occurrence in Florida increased nearly 10-fold as populations were found at 29 new sites. Included were well known infestations at the Loxahatchee River, in 1986, and the Withlacoochee River in 1989. By 1989 the range of Hygrophila polysperma extended northward through central Florida to the Santa Fe River, Columbia County (FLDEP 1988-94). Also known was a disjunct westward location, along a roadside in Tallahassee, in the Florida Panhandle [Katherine M.


Gilbert s.n. (FLAS), 1988]. 
1990's: By 1999 Hygrophila polysperma was known from at least 22 rivers/streams, 13 lakes, 2 ditches and 7 canal systems in Florida. This accounts for 20 counties and a total of 17 drainages in the state. More tolerant to the herbicides and grass carp used to control hydrilla, hygrophila is replacing hydrilla as the number one non-native aquatic weed in some southeast Florida canals (Duke et al. 2000).
nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/FactSheet.asp?speciesID=225