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Adapting to life in the scrub... The plants of the Florida scrub are especially adapted to life in a harsh environment. In order to adapt successfully to life in the scrub, plants must:
How not to be had for dinner... Many scrub plants are adorned with thorns and spines. Many scrub plants are highly aromatic, containing volatile oils. These chemicals protect the plants from being eaten. They give the plant a strong taste and smell (like camphor, peppermint, or oregano). In some cases these oils simply make the plant taste bad. In others they are toxic and could kill the diner. At least one Florida scrub plant has been shown to have important insecticidal properties. Others may have medicinal uses. Most have not even been investigated. Surviving Fire... Most scrub plants resprout from underground stems, rhizomes or roots after a fire. Others are killed by fire but replace themselves with seeds already stored in the soil. The sand pine (the only kind of tree normally found in scrub) retains its seeds in sealed cones on its branches until it burns to death. Dealing with heat and lack of water... Most scrub plants do not have long taproots - the water table is too far below the sandy surface; instead, their roots are massed near the surface to take advantage of condensation and Florida's brief afternoon thunderstorms. Because there is no tree canopy in scrub, temperatures drop rapidly when the sun goes down and that causes moisture to condense on the leaves. The moisture then falls in drops right above the roots.
Florida Scrub pages: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Gallery of Typical Scrub Plants
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Many scrub plants have waxy-covered or curled leaves to resist evaporative water loss. Some have hairs (called pubescence) on the underside of the leaves to resist evaporation by maintaining high humidity at the surface. These hairs also increase the surface area for dew to form on. The needle-like leaves of many scrub plants may reduce evaporation (which occurs from the leaf underside) during the daytime, and provide increased surface area for dew to form on at night. This scrub holly has curled, spiny leaves that are oriented vertically, the better to direct water drops to its own roots.
