A TOUR GUIDES VIEW of The MELALEUCA TREE

By: Glenn Wilsey, Sr.

In this month’s story, we’ll discuss how the Melaleuca (also known as the paper bark tree) can and is destroying The Everglades. What this harmful invader does includes accelerating the rate at which the water dissipates into the air thus drying up large areas of wetlands and causing numerous health problems in humans including asthma and other respiratory ailments. It also takes over every square inch of open space, choking out the native plants, which means no food for the native animals.

Most people know me as a common man. I don’t usually concern myself with the scientific names of the flora and fauna. I am, after all, a tour guide and conservationist, not a scientist. I always try to teach people about The Everglades using the simplest terms, however, for accuracy’s sake; the scientific name of the melaleuca tree is quinquenervia.

The quinquenervia trees (and that’s the last time I’ll call them that, I promise) can grow up to 70 feet in height and can have multiple trunks that can be up to 6 feet wide. The melaleuca forests grow so thick that they are impenetrable to both people and animals. The bark of the melaleuca tree is a soft, pale tan color. It looks and feels like paper so many people call the invader the paper bark tree. Its leaves are light green and give off a very aromatic smell when crushed. The melaleuca tree blooms twice a year here in South Florida. When in bloom, its flowers are white in color and are compacted into a bottle brush arrangement at the tips.

The melaleuca poses a serious health problem to people with breathing disorders like asthma. When the melaleuca trees are blooming, anyone with asthma will know it. During a melaleuca bloom in 1979, when my son was only five, he had a severe asthma attack and had to be hospitalized with a nearly collapsed lung.

A lot of people who are not asthmatics react to the blooming melaleuca with uncontrollable sneezing fits. It is not pleasant. You can’t help but notice when the melaleucas are blooming because they give off a nasty smell which is somewhat reminiscent of rotting potatoes.

Melaleuca trees were introduced to South Florida in 1906 by a forester at the University of Miami. He planted the Australian native primarily because they are fast growing, very tall trees that provide shade. Tall shade trees were a commodity that was in short supply at the time. Early farmers added to the problem.

They planted the melaleuca around their fields to create windbreaks to protect their crops. In the 1930’s, some shady developers got together and devised a plan to drain The Everglades by planting the thirsty melaleucas. As the story goes, some developers were on vacation in Australia. While flying over the vast Australian outback they saw vast forests and asked their pilot about them. The pilot told them that the area had been a swamp just a short time before their flight and how the trees called melaleucas had sucked up all the water. These greedy fellows immediately thought of the Florida Everglades, our “river of grass.”

Now in South Florida there are three types of land. We have dry land, 50-50 land and wetlands. From the East Coast, extending inland for 10 to 20 miles the land is dry all year long. From that point extending another 10 to 15 miles we have the 50-50 land, this is the land that is dry for half the year and wet the other half (50-50). From that point extending another 50 to 70 miles further west the land is pure Everglades wetland. What our developer friends thought they would do is convert the 50-50 land to dry saleable ground. So, in 1936 they imported melaleuca seeds and began their private campaign to dry up The Everglades. They got into their planes and flew over the 50-50 land from Homestead to Palm Beach, along the eastern edge of The Everglades, spreading melaleuca seeds as they went. They knew that the melaleucas would flourish and dry up the land within just a few short years.

The wind is a friend to the melaleuca. Each seed bulb from a blooming tree has hundreds of seeds in it. Each stem tip of a melaleuca in bloom has hundreds of seed bulbs. When the bulbs open, the wind can carry the seeds hundreds of feet from the “mother” tree. The developers bought the land for pennies and sold it for thousands.

Sixty odd years later, The State of Florida realized the great tragedy at play and decided to do something about it. They’ve been working on ways to eradicate the melaleuca and have come up with three. The first method involves cutting down the trees and poisoning the stumps. This is not as easy as it sounds. First you have to assemble a work crew that is willing to trudge through the swamp up to their knees (sometimes higher) in muck and muddy water, carrying their equipment. Sure they have airboats, swamp buggies and even helicopters, but you can only get so close before you have to walk.

You would think that for such a difficult job the state would only use a crew of rough and tough guys. However, one day when I was riding around in the glades (yes, an airboat guide riding around by myself on my day off, if you ever see the beauty of the glades you’d understand) I saw a helicopter land by a small clump of melaleucas and decided to check them out and boy was I surprised. Now don’t get mad, but I’m about to let a little of my Southern chauvinism shine through. It was a crew of 5, the pilot and 4 very pretty little ladies who were about to attack those melaleucas with axes and chainsaws. I wanted to ask them some questions but they were really concentrating on what they were doing and I decided that interrupting a woman with a chainsaw wouldn’t be prudent. Cutting the trees down works pretty well, but it is very dangerous for airboaters. In the beginning of this program they would just cut down the trees and leave the stumps sticking up. Anyone riding through the area was in danger of hitting a stump. I saw an airboat after it hit a melaleuca stump. It was nearly split in half. Fortunately, the passengers were thrown clear of the boat and landed in the sawgrass. Because boats were being destroyed and people were getting hurt, the state decided to leave one dead tree standing amid the stumps kind of like a great big warning sign, so that airboaters would know to avoid the immediate area.

The other two methods for eradicating the melaleuca are used by the folks at Water Management. They are experimenting with natural methods. They have introduced a fungus that basically causes the trees to rot and have also tried to infest the melaleucas with an insect, a type of bollweevil. Before they can put these methods into widespread use they have to do a lot of testing, primarily to make sure that they won'’ harm native plant life. We really have high hopes that one of these natural methods will work. At least they sound promising.

I hope I’ve clarified the problem of the melaleuca tree in The Everglades. Remember that it is not the only invading species that threatens our delicate ecosystem but it is a major problem and it’s here because we brought it here. Please keep that in mind the next time you’re working on the landscaping around your house. Many nurseries sell ornamental trees and shrubs that are not native species. They may look nice in your yard but they can thrive without their own native conditions or predators and can spread quickly, displacing native, beneficial species.

Nature rules! Until next Month,
*This story or any part of can not be used or reproduced with out written permission of the author!

Due to Glenn's work Stories will be posted when recived!