Lee's Ranch 6 is a photograph by Sarah Loft which was uploaded on October 17th, 2017.
Lee's Ranch 6
This is a photo of my brother's ranch in central Florida showing a dirt road and trees hung with Spanish moss.... more
by Sarah Loft
Title
Lee's Ranch 6
Artist
Sarah Loft
Medium
Photograph
Description
This is a photo of my brother's ranch in central Florida showing a dirt road and trees hung with Spanish moss.
Per Wikipedia: Hernando County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2010 census, the population was 172,778. Its county seat is Brooksville, and its largest community is Spring Hill.
Around 1840, Fort DeSoto was established in present-day Hernando County in the northeast edge of present-day Brooksville to protect settlers in the area from Native Americans. Fort DeSoto became a small community center, trading post, and way station on the route to Tampa. When settlement by the fort began around 1845, it was alternatively known as Pierceville.
Then encompassing a significantly larger area of west central Florida than it does today, Hernando County was officially established on February 27, 1843, two years prior to Florida's admission into the Union. It was created from portions of Alachua, Hillsborough and Orange Counties and included all of present-day Citrus and Pasco Counties. Named for Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto, whose name has also been honored in DeSoto County, Hernando County was briefly renamed Benton County in 1844 for Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton, a strong supporter of territorial expansion who aided in the county's creation. However, Benton fell out of favor with the county's residents later in the decade due to his decision to support the Missouri Compromise and the overall reversal of his stance on slavery, and the county's name reverted in 1850.
During the Civil War, Hernando County primarily contributed foodstuffs, cotton, and lumber to the Confederacy. Although Union ships imposed a blockade on the port of Bayport, runners enjoyed a great deal of success—enough to lead the Union in June 1864 to order some 150–250 troops to destroy Confederate stockpiles in the county. In early July, the expedition marched northward from Anclote River to Brooksville, meeting some resistance from assembled Confederate troops hastily organized to protect the city. The Federal troops won this engagement (known locally as the Brooksville Raid and marched to Bayport, where they and an auxiliary force landing from gunboats sacked Rebel operations. The skirmish between Union raiders and local Confederates is reenacted annually in the county.
According to the World Atlas USA, Hernando County is the geographic center of Florida. Elevation in the county ranges from mean sea level along the Gulf coast to its highest natural point of 269 feet at Chinsegut Hill.
Per Wikipedia: Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) is an epiphytic flowering plant that often grows upon larger trees in tropical and subtropical climates, native to much of Mexico, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Central America, South America, the southern United States, and the West Indies as well as being naturalized in Queensland (Australia) known as "grandpas beard" and in French Polynesia. In the United States from where it is most known, it is commonly found on the southern live oak (Quercus virginiana) and bald-cypress (Taxodium distichum) in the lowlands, swamps, and savannas of the southeastern United States from Texas and Florida north through southern Arkansas.
This plant's specific name usneoides means "resembling Usnea", and it indeed superficially resembles its namesake Usnea, also known as beard lichen, but in fact Spanish moss is neither a moss nor a lichen. Instead, it is a flowering plant (angiosperm) in the family Bromeliaceae (the bromeliads) which grows hanging from tree branches in full sun through partial shade. Formerly this plant has been placed in the genera Anoplophytum, Caraguata, and Renealmia. The northern limit of its natural range is Northampton County, Virginia, with unsubstantiated colonial-era reports in southern Maryland where no populations are now known to be extant. The primary range is in the southeastern United States (including Puerto Rico), through Argentina, growing where the climate is warm enough and has a relatively high average humidity. It has been introduced to similar locations around the world, including Hawaii and Australia.
Spanish-moss is an epiphyte which absorbs nutrients and water through its leaves from the air and rainfall.
While it rarely kills the tree upon which it grows, it can occasionally become so thick that it shades the tree's leaves and lowers its growth rate.
In the southern U.S., the plant seems to show a preference for growth on southern live oak (Quercus virginiana) and bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) because of these trees' high rates of foliar mineral leaching (calcium, magnesium, potassium, and phosphorus) providing an abundant supply of nutrients to the plant, but it can also colonize other tree species such as sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua), crepe-myrtles (Lagerstroemia spp.), other oaks, and even pines.
Spanish-moss shelters a number of creatures, including rat snakes and three species of bats. One species of jumping spider, Pelegrina tillandsiae, has been found only on Spanish-moss. Chiggers, though widely assumed to infest Spanish-moss, were not present among thousands of other arthropods identified in one study.
Due to its propensity for growing in subtropical humid southern locales like Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, North Carolina, extreme southern Virginia, east and south Texas, and Alabama, the plant is often associated with Southern Gothic imagery and Deep South culture.
Spanish-moss has been used for various purposes, including building insulation, mulch, packing material, mattress stuffing, and fiber. In the early 1900s it was used commercially in the padding of car seats. In 1939 over 10,000 tons of processed Spanish-moss was produced. It is still collected today in smaller quantities for use in arts and crafts, or for beddings for flower gardens, and as an ingredient in the traditional wall covering material bousillage. In some parts of Latin America and Louisiana Spanish moss is used in Nativity scenes.
In the desert regions of the southwestern United States, dried Spanish-moss plants are used in the manufacture of evaporative coolers, colloquially known as swamp coolers (and in some areas as "desert coolers"). These are used to cool homes and offices much less expensively than using air conditioners. A pump squirts water onto a pad made of Spanish-moss plants. A fan then pulls air through the pad and into the building. Evaporation of the water on the pads serves to reduce the air temperature, thus cooling the building.
Note: The watermark will not appear on the print you purchase.
Featured in the 500 Views group, January 2019.
Featured in the No Place Like Home group, June 2019.
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October 17th, 2017
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Viewed 1,618 Times - Last Visitor from Fairfield, CT on 03/29/2024 at 8:05 AM
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Comments (11)
Jenny Revitz Soper
CONGRATULATIONS! This outstanding piece has been FEATURED on the homepage of the FAA Artist Group No Place Like Home, 6/16/2019! Way to go! Please post it in the Group's Features discussion thread for posterity and/or any other thread that fits!