Those who stop at the Oasis Visitor Center along the Tamiani Trail through the Everglades, an ecosystem in South Florida that is unlike any other in the world, get a bird’s-eye view of one of the region’s attrations: fearsome American alligators that make a home in the vast park. (This one was camera-shy.) The glades are a unique mixture of estuarine waters, mangroves, freshwater marshes, cypress swamps, flat pine forests, and hardwood “hammocks” (rarely flooded high spots) among vast sawgrass plains. Photo by Carol Highsmith, 2020.