The Missing Gator of Gumbo Limbo

By Carole Parsons

This book was long in its development, which went something like this.

When my father retired, he and Mother moved to Florida where he switched his profession from entomology to botany. That was a joy for me because he tramped and canoed the entire Everglades day in and day out, collecting plants for the National Park.  I went with him to hammocks, tree islands, and dark, mangrove-hung sloughs. We found alligator nests and listened to the old male 'gators trumpet across the saw grass in search of mates. The hardwood hammocks became my favorite ecosystem and I would often walk into one and sit quietly. They held beautiful trees, orchids, bromeliads, ferns and birds galore.

As the years passed orchid hunters, ravished the orchids, the bromeliads were stolen and alligator hunters reduced the 'gators to a rare and endangered few.

About the same time, in far away India, a friend of mine told me about a huge croc that lived in a river. He was old and wary. He had been hunted so long and so intensely that he had become wise. No one could find him even although they knew he was close by.

The Missing 'Gator of Gumbo Limbo is the answer to what happened to him; and the setting is a hammock near my parents' home in Naples, Florida. Animals are wise and beautiful.

- Jean Craighead George

Gumbo Limbo Trees

Gumbo Limbo Trees

The gumbo limbo tree bark can be used as a poultice to treat rashes and snakebites.

“Dajun was swampland royalty.”

“When he gets too hot, he goes into the water to cool off. In the hot afternoons he often regulates his temperature by floating at the surface. The sun warms his back and the water cools his belly and feet.”

“He crosses Gumbo Limbo hole like a bulldozer.”“Without Dajun in the hole, in a very few days the blue-green algae and hydrilla will choke Gumbo Limbo Hole. Scum will cover it. That will tell the official that there is no alligator and he’ll stop hunting him.”

“Solution Pits are peculiar to limestone country, particularly in Florida.”

Venus Hair Fern

Orchids

Soapberry“Mom and I put buckets of pit water out in the sun to heat up, then we wash with soapberries and jump in Gumbo Limbo Hole to rinse”

Cypress stand

Rabbit Tobacco

Bustic Tree

Leather Fern (huge clump, twice as tall as Liza).

“He picked a twig from a tree and tasted it. ‘Buttonwood,’ he said. ‘For ages and ages buttonwood trees, which are very adaptable, have formed a barrier between the salt water and the fresh water.”

Tallowwood

Pigeon Plum

The heart of a cabbage palm is edible, and the Guale Indians boiled it in bear fat for porridge.This main branch can be cut into thin slices like cole slaw and cooked with meat seasoning until done. The unique flavor is best described as smoky and wild. The cabbage can also be sliced into thin pieces placed into a tossed salad. Its flowers add a sweet fragrance to the salty marsh air.

Gumbo Limbo Hammock Scenes

View of a tropical Florida hammock

Resurrection ferns wither when its dry and revive when it rains.

Mahogany tree and its seed capsule

Banyan Tree

“Banyan trees with air roots that grow down to the earth and grow like a forest.”

Banyan Trees

Tropical hardwood hammock

“Hammocks are tropical Edens.”

“Black Ironwood so dense it will not float.”

“Through the curtain of strangler fig roots I could just see her head bent over her card table.”

Strangler Figs

Alligator Flags are the tall plants that grow around alligator holes.

Liza and her mom live under a live oak tree so big that she and her mom can’t reach arms around it, its limbs could cover a tennis court.

On its branches grow gardens of orchids and bromeliads.

Bromeliads are Epiphytes (air plants)

Their roots hanging rather than buried in soil, they absorb water from the air

Saw-grass is so named because it has spiny, serrated leaf blades that resemble a saw. It is the species that inspired the phrase 'river of grass' and is often referred to as

Everglades river grass.

Hydrilla is a pest weed.

Sherlock Holmes

“Opening my bird book, I discovered he was an African gray parrot. ‘The best talker of all the parrots,’ the book said.”

Great Horned Owl

Raccoon

Tree snails

Great Blue Heron“Gators like to eat herons.”

“James James threaded among the jungle plants as slowly and gracefully as an

egret.”

Coot

Anhinga

Gallinule

Anoles

Muskrat

Weasel

Mini bottles contain liquorPricilla was is collecting mini gin bottles….As you read you will discover what she was using the mini gin bottles for

Liza said, "I four-legged it back through

the culvert...”

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