Totaling 14,961 acres in far southern Illinois, the Cache River State Natural Area is a floodplain carved long ago by glacial melt off. The glaciers stopped just before what is now the Shawnee National Forest, thus creating its lovely hills and rock formations, and when they melted, the Ohio River adopted its current course and the Cache River meandered across rich and vast wetlands.
The cypress trees are one of the outstanding natural features which developed here. Their flared bases (called buttresses) can exceed 40 feet in circumference, and many are over 1000 years old!
The dense thickets of what look like bushes are thickets of buttonbush which occur in areas of shallow water as seen below.
Signage points the way to various favorite spots located along six miles of water trails meandering through rivers, ponds, and swamps within the lower portion of the Cache River known as Buttonland Swamp.
Below is Illinois' champion cypress tree...
This tree pictured below has been documented to have 205 knees, which are the protrusions near the tree and are thought to either serve as stability for the tall trees and/or perhaps serve to exchange gases (breathe) for the tree. The tree itself is over 900 years old.
This area has some of the highest quality aquatic and terrestrial communities remaining in Illinois. These wetlands are vital to migratory waterfowl and shorebirds and therefore have been designated a "Wetland of Importance," one of only 19 such areas in the country.
This beautiful scenery is home to over 100 plant and animal species listed as threatened or endangered by the state of Illinois. Birds are the signature species of animal and include bald eagles, one of which flew right to the cypress tree we were grouped under in an area called (fittingly) Eagle Pond. Other predominant birds in the swamp are red-tailed hawks, great horned owls, barred owls, great blue herons, great white egrets, little blue herons, greenhorns, east bitterns, wood ducks, mallards, snow geese, soar rails, woodcock, quail, mourning doves, several types of woodpeckers, prothonotary warblers, and black and turkey vultures.
Swimming beneath these tea-colored water are catfish, crappie, bass, bluegill, bowfin, gar, pickerel, pygmy sunfish, and cypress minnows, the last two of which are state-endangered and found only in wetlands dominated by forested swamps.
...and the swamp is infested with the invasive Asian Carp like the one that jumped into one of our canoes...
Stands of tupelo...
Information taken from "Cache River State Natural Area," a brochure published by the Illinois State Department of Natural Resources.
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