just a bit to all.Tropical is somewhere around 20 to 33 deg C
[ 70 to 90 deg.F] with heavy rainfall,low/no rainfall,high
humidity,
low humidity,dips to high teens deg.C [ on the mountains the
trees tolerate 55 deg.F even light frost.] but there is no real
winter/ice/and so on.

Florida is still Sub-Tropical,no matter how much you dream
of beaches and Mickey Mouse.

I do wish others would keep using the proper terms.In the
Tropics the high mountain areas have their own zones.

Orange trees do not need heat pots down here and orange
skins stay green when ripe.The blood oranges do not do
well,oranges have been cross bred to withstand the tropical
temperature,but it is a cool sub-tropical with warm temperate
cousins.

A true tropical would die in Miami,without protection.

Actually, to be very picky, the Tropics and tropical are
geographical rather than temperature related terms. Everything
between the Tropic of Cancer (north) and Tropic of Capricorn
(south), a stretch of some 23-plus degrees latitude with the
equator in the middle is "tropical."

Another measure of "tropical" might be whether reef-building
corals can thrive (!) in marine waters. Under that definition
Miami is (or was) tropical; I say "was" because reefs aren't
"thriving" any longer; ocean pollution and warming sea water are
rapidly killing reef-building corals worldwide, though I suppose
that may mean that Savannah, Georgia and San Diego may sometime
be "tropical."

Under this definition, tropical plants include those that live on
the icy upper slopes of the Andes as well as those that live in
Trinidad or the Amazon jungle.

And lowland rainforest "tropical" trees will survive (though some
may not thrive, mostly for reasons of soil and nutrients) from
about Ft. Lauderdale, south through Miami to Key West) with no
additional protection. It's people like me who wouldn't survive
there, but not for climatic or geographical reasons. ;-)
(Though I was perfectly happy living in Hawaii -- which is just
barely tropical, as it lies just about ON the Tropic of Cancer.)

Anyway, the pedant speaks. ;-)

Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - The phrase
'sustainable growth' is an oxymoron. - Stephen Viederman

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