Bermuda (officially, The Bermuda Islands or The Somers Isles) is an overseas territory of the United Kingdom in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, it is situated around northeast of Miami, Florida, and south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, west of Portugal, northwest of Brazil, north of Havana, Cuba and north-northeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico. The nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about west-northwest, followed by Cape Sable Island, Nova Scotia, Canada 1,236 km (768 mi) northward. Although commonly referred to in the singular (i.e., The Island, The Rock, and Bermuda), the territory consists of approximately 138 islands, with a total area of .
Native terrestrial ecology
Bermuda's ecology has been altered radically since the 16th century by humans and the plants and animals they introduced. Some species had actually become extinct long before this, including the short-tailed albatross, a species which occurs today only in the northern Pacific Ocean.
Flora
Of 165 plant species found in Bermuda today, 14 are endemic, and 25 are endangered. When discovered, about 1505, the island's habitat was dominated by the remnant, old-growth forest of Bermuda Juniper (Juniperus bermudiana). Underwater archaeology of the caldera basin to the north shows that the area was once densely forested with junipers when it was above sea level. The juniper is an endemic species, though related to species found in North America. Its wood is an unusually deep red, indicative of the high iron content of the island's soil (which is similarly very red). Prior to human settlement, there were several million juniper trees in Bermuda. By the 1830s, large areas of Bermuda had been denuded by the shipbuilding industry. As that industry died out in the 19th century, however, the junipers rapidly recovered their numbers. By 1900, when the human population neared 20,000, the islands were again covered densely with juniper, although many of these were juvenile trees. The respite proved temporary, however. In the 1940s, it was realised that two species of scale insect, Lepidosaphes newsteadi and Carulaspis minima, had accidentally been introduced, and were rapidly killing off the junipers, which had no immunity to their toxicological effect. Attempts were made to control the infestation naturally, which involved the large-scale introduction of ladybird beetles (Coccinellidae), but these were to no avail. Over the next decade, roughly 8 million juniper trees were lost to the scales. Motor cars were legalised in Bermuda in 1948, as a result of changes wrought by World War II, and the resultant sprawl of the rapidly growing population (which had reached 60,000 by the 1980s) outward from the pre-war population centres happened simultaneously with the destruction of the forests. Unlike in the 19th century, many plant species that had been introduced, some, like the Casuarina, specifically to replace the windbreak lost with the juniper, spread virulently. The juniper grows slowly by comparison to many of the introduced species, and has been unable to thrive in the presence of Casuarina and Brazilian pepper trees. Efforts to restore it centre around intensively managed land areas, such as gardens and golf courses. Other large plant species, which were never as numerous as the juniper, had also fared poorly in the presence of invasive species, but have become popular with gardeners and their numbers also have increased in managed areas. These include two native species, the Bermuda olivewood (Elaeodendron laneanum), and the Bermuda palmetto (Sabal bermudana), the only native or endemic palm. In some coastal areas and inland marshes, Bermuda is the most northerly point at which mangrove trees are found. Smaller plants include many ferns. Notable among these is the rare Bermuda cave fern (Ctenitis sloanei). An even rarer fern, Diplazium laffanianum, no longer survives in the wild. Another native plant is the iris Bermudiana (Sisyrinchium bermudiana). This was thought to be endemic, but also appears in two locations in Ireland. Many of the smaller endemic and native plants of Bermuda are rare and endangered, but others have survived and prospered. The common Bermuda grass is not actually Bermudian, but a Mediterranean import.