Jungle

Nov. 14 – Rain forest

We learned the difference between a jungle and a rain forest today. A jungle is the first growth that occurs as the forest grows. It's all low stuff that is really difficult to walk through. After the short stuff grows up, the forest canopy shades the forest floor killing off all the low-growing vegetation and the mature rain forest has a mostly clear floor. All the green stuff is up in the tops of the trees. You can see how open it is in the picture. There are a few ferns in the brighter areas, the rest is just leaf litter and tree trunks.

This rain forest is one of the remnants of the jungles at the time of the dinosaurs. There aren't many flowers and the ones that are there are very primitive. This was very interesting.