Red Bay Trees are Dying

[Swamp Hunter]

Soon we will no longer be able to pick bay leaves in the wild for flavoring. Red Bays are dying and they will soon join the American Elm and Chestnut in extinction. .

Places like Brighton, Big Cypress and across the Everglades are now the redbay’s last stand. The glossy green scaffold of the Southern forests has been a major cultural staple of Florida’s indigenous peoples and their descendants – the Seminole, Miccosukee and Creek Indians. With its hardwood and shiny green, leathery, elliptic leaves, the aromatic redbay is a veritable major component of traditional Tribal medicine and ceremony.

But scientists warn the tree will soon be extinct in Southeast Florida – the finish line of a unique flora “death march” ongoing since the calamity was first noticed in 2002.

http://seminoletribune.org/redbay-trees-are-dying/

http://www.terrain.org/articles/22/cerulean.htm

[D Warfel]

Yes its quite sad. You can see lots of dead bay trees driving west on Tamiami from Miami and here and there on tree islands closer to the road. I believe research is currently being done by IFAS and USDA to come up with some resistant strains of red bay. Perhaps the dead bay trees can be replaced by these strains resistant to laurel wilt. I'm always weary of such genetic manipulations but this may be the way to go. What do you think will happen when the canopy in tree islands start to open up as the bay trees die? Something is going to take that place. My guess is that it will be Old World Climbing Fern or Brazilian Pepper.

Interesting challenges we face here.....