Fakahatchee Strand

The Fakahatchee Strand is a long, narrow swamp forest in southwestern Florida, roughly 20 miles long and a few miles wide, that drains slowly south toward the Ten Thousand Islands. A strand is a channel of deeper water in the limestone where cypress, hardwoods and palms grow together, and the Fakahatchee is the largest of them. It is often called the orchid capital of North America, with more native orchid species than any other place on the continent, and it holds the largest stand of native royal palms in the United States. The Big Cypress Bend boardwalk on the Tamiami Trail leads into one of the few stands of old-growth cypress left in the strand. Most of the rest was cut. From the mid-1940s into the early 1950s a lumber company ran rail lines into the swamp and logged out nearly all of its great cypress, and the old tram roads still run through the preserve as straight, raised trails. The strand's best known resident is the ghost orchid, a leafless plant whose white flower seems to float in the air. In December 1993 a plant dealer named John Laroche and three Seminole men were arrested for taking orchids from the Fakahatchee, a case Susan Orlean told in her 1998 book The Orchid Thief, later adapted into the film Adaptation. The strand is also prime ground for the Florida panther and the Florida black bear, and the state has protected it as a preserve since 1974.