I like to refer to the Rhizophoreaceae family as the mangrove family, because that is what this family means to me. Mangroves and me go back a ways, back to the Florida Everglades where they are abundant. I was impressed to learn that the spread of mangroves literally creates land out of sea. In fact it does this with the help of allied plants and animals, the sum of which creates an ecological community that includes crabs, crocodiles, various species of mangroves and buttonwood, Conocarpus erectus. But the dominant player is red mangrove, Rhizophora mangle.
One very confusing thing is that different mangroves belong to different families. White mangrove, Laguncularia racemosa, belongs to the Combretaceae family, while black mangrove, Avicennia germinans, belongs to the Acanthaceae (the first family listed on this blog). Again, the dominant player, at least in the American tropics, seems to be red mangrove.
Above is a photo I took while kayaking near Bannister Island, Belize. I'm not sure exactly which mangroves they are, but it was impressive to see such an extensive matrix of islands rising out of the sea. This to me is the essence of mangroves: living land, not for people, but for its own sake.
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