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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
The state of Florida is best known for its beaches and swaying palm trees. But a good chunk1 of it is swampland. The famous Everglades, a slow-moving sheet of water full of plants and alligators2, cover much of the southern part of the state.
To the north, the Okefenokee, which is partly in Florida and mostly in neighboring Georgia, is a true swamp, with its own gators and snakes and even beautiful orchids3.
The Okefenokee seems primeval. It was formed when waters from an ancient ocean receded4 and a mammoth5 sandbar blocked most of the water flow to the sea. Left behind was an 1,800-square-kilometer swamp.
A watery6 reflection of a cypress7 tree that manages to survive despite being submerged.
There's no big city within 200 km, but tourists from all over the world manage to find it. They all want to know about its unusual name. Okefenokee is a Miccosukee Indian word meaning land of trembling earth. Way back in the swamp are small, floating islands, called hammocks, that one can walk across. And they tremble. Standing8 on them is like trying to balance on a floating mattress9.
Better to avoid the unstable10 hammocks altogether, since they're filled with snakes, occasional bears, and flesh-eating plants that, helpfully, feed on mosquitoes.
CanalDiggersTrail_wmg, Flickr Creative Commmons
Don't let this photo of the Okefenokee Swamp fool you. It looks like there's nice, steady ground to walk on, but the surface is spongy at best and submerged in many places.
Water in the Okefenokee is dark, like tea that has steeped a long time. The color comes from tannin that seeps11 from towering cypress trees draped in Spanish moss12.
Every once in awhile, the rangers13 must crack down on reckless pilots of air boats that skim across the swamp, endangering themselves and others and tearing up delicate foliage14. And developers, logging companies, and strip-mine operators on the edge of the swamp can easily upset the delicate balance of nature in the area.
The Okefenokee, which is already nearly choked with plants, would probably fill in, dry up, and become just another cypress and pine forest were it not for range fires that come along every once in awhile and burn out decayed vegetation. So the water in this protected National Wildlife Refuge keeps moving - slowly, very slowly.
1 chunk | |
n.厚片,大块,相当大的部分(数量) | |
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2 alligators | |
n.短吻鳄( alligator的名词复数 ) | |
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3 orchids | |
n.兰花( orchid的名词复数 ) | |
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4 receded | |
v.逐渐远离( recede的过去式和过去分词 );向后倾斜;自原处后退或避开别人的注视;尤指问题 | |
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5 mammoth | |
n.长毛象;adj.长毛象似的,巨大的 | |
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6 watery | |
adj.有水的,水汪汪的;湿的,湿润的 | |
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7 cypress | |
n.柏树 | |
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8 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
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9 mattress | |
n.床垫,床褥 | |
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10 unstable | |
adj.不稳定的,易变的 | |
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11 seeps | |
n.(液体)渗( seep的名词复数 );渗透;渗出;漏出v.(液体)渗( seep的第三人称单数 );渗透;渗出;漏出 | |
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12 moss | |
n.苔,藓,地衣 | |
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13 rangers | |
护林者( ranger的名词复数 ); 突击队员 | |
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14 foliage | |
n.叶子,树叶,簇叶 | |
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