Hello from Cedar Key, Florida! We love coming here for a little warmth and sunshine as Ontario starts the long wet chill that eventually congeals into winter.

Sunrise over the pier at Cedar Key, Florida

You may have heard about Cedar Key last August if you were watching the news about Hurricane Idalia. This small working town (clam farming is the main industry) was smack dab in the centre of the storm’s path. Cedar Key is quintessentially Old Florida. Its vintage main street, absence of chain or big box establishments and complete lack of pretension are some of the many reasons we love coming here. But the folks of Cedar Key also have good old fashioned resilience and resourcefulness. The hurricane had brought substantial damage to homes and businesses but, just a few months later, we saw only smiling faces and plenty of repair work being done. Life goes on and Cedar Keyans are quite used to picking up the pieces and carrying on.

I started to wonder about the natural resilience of the plants as well. I would’ve expected a lot of trees and shrubs to have been flattened by the hurricane’s winds or killed by the monumental storm surge. Neighbours of ours described how the sea water rose up to within inches of our home’s raised porch which is about five feet above ground. Yet there were shrubs blooming and fruiting, trees still reaching up and out to shade the town’s streets. Like the many Monarch butterflies we saw flitting around the palm fronds and gliding along a sea breeze, I saw a seemingly fragile beauty that belied true strength.

Hardened jewels by the sea

Christmasberry shrubs line the shoreline near our rented home in Cedar Key

Along the shoreline near our place is a long natural hedgerow of berry-heavy shrubs. Christmasberry (Lycium carolinianum) is an evergreen perennial native to coastal Florida that’s renowned for being long lived. I guess you’d have to be pretty tough to stick around a long time around here. Turns out this cutey, with its small, rounded succulent leaves is a stellar survivor. It can tolerate an inundation of brackish water and significant and ongoing amounts of salty wind and spray. I’m guessing the plump leaves have a lot to do with its hardiness. Succulent leaves keep water (the good kind) in as well as guard against water loss.

Christmasberry thrives in nothing more than sand while offering fruit to hungry birds and flowers for hummingbirds, butterflies and moths. Funny thing is that it’s part of the tomato family. Makes sense, actually, as its lovely berries, sparkling like jewels in the strong sunshine, look just like miniature plum tomatoes.

Christmasberry bearing both fruits and flowers

I think the most surprising (but happy) discovery for me though was that all the grand old Live Oaks throughout the town were still standing.

Grand old trees that defy the weather

A Live Oak in downtown Cedar Key with its distinctively stout trunk

These beauties are huge with long, thick branches that defy gravity as they reach out to lengths greater than the tree is tall.

Quercus virginiana, commonly known as Live Oak, can grow up to 80 feet tall with a spread of over 120 feet. It gets its name from the fact that, despite it being an oak, is an evergreen. It’s a native of Florida as well as most of the southern United States. Live Oak gets its name from the fact that it loses and replaces its leaves gradually over the course of the year unlike regular oaks that drop all their leaves in the fall. The result is that Live Oaks look alive all year long.

They’re also notoriously long lived. One of our neighbours boasted a Live Oak in their backyard which was over 380 years old. How they knew this is a mystery but the tree certainly looked ancient.

Designed to stay put

Research by University of Florida scientists reveals that Sand Live Oak (Quercus geminata) is the most resistant to wind damage. Regular Live Oaks come in a good close second, though. The prevailing wisdom is that Live Oaks in general are less apt to lose limbs or blow over in hurricane-force winds because of the tree’s high wood strength, a low canopy and a shorter, stout trunk. On top of that, both the trunk and its branches are spiralled so they flex in the wind. Remarkably, their leaves “curl into the shape of a Fibonacci sequence” when the wind hits them. This allows the wind to flow through the leaves with minimal friction and they aren’t torn off easily.

An elegant “moss” that isn’t

Spanish moss draped through the branches of a tree inland from Cedar Key

I always thought Spanish moss was harmful to trees. As it turns out I was wrong on several fronts when it comes to this graceful plant.

Spanish moss is:

• not a moss. It’s an epiphytic herb. In other words, an air plant. It ain’t Spanish either. It’s a native of the southeastern U.S.
• not a tree killer. It gets its unwarranted reputation from the fact that it often establishes itself on dead or dying trees. But it can hasten a tree’s demise if there’s so much of it that the weight of it breaks branches or smothers the tree’s leaves.
• a great weapon. Warriors used to wrap the moss around the shaft of an arrow, light it on fire and then shoot it at unfortunates. I’m not making this up.
• a repeat performer. If you lose your Spanish moss to a ferocious hurricane, don’t worry. It’ll grow back eventually.

Cedar Key holds a special place in my heart. Now that I know a little more about what makes up its incredible beauty, I love and respect this place even more.