Cypress savanna

Figure 17. This cypress savanna is flooded only part of the year. (Photograph by the author. More about the photograph)

Figure 17 shows an example of another rare community: a cypress savanna. Savannas are defined as tropical or subtropical grasslands with scattered trees, and in this case the trees are not pines, they are cypresses. Most cypresses in North Carolina occur in places that are permanently flooded (see Figure 18), but in rare cases they occur in places that are flooded in some seasons and dry in others. That is what is illustrated in Figure 17.

This depression lies over a limestone formation that has collapsed to create what is called a “lime sink.” Figure 17 shows this site in the middle of a notoriously dry summer when there is no sign of standing water. That may not be so great for the cypress, but the grasses are happy and grow profusely to create a “grassland with scattered trees” — a savanna, albeit of a very rare type.

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