The swamp itself is a breathless, delicate, primal place where slender white cedars huddle on mossy islands amid tea-colored water.

Fingers of tea-colored water wrapped around bridges, spilled across fields and reached into low-lying neighborhoods.

The clear, tea-colored waters of the James Branch flow through old stands of cypress, including one giant more than 500 years old and 33 feet in circumference.

In the dark tea-colored waters live untold numbers of catfish, carp, soft-shell fresh water turtles, and crocodiles.

He watched a blue heron rise from the reeds like a ghost, beautiful, pure, perfect, to skim over the tea-colored water and glide into the trees.

Over the centuries, everything from raw sugar to raw sewage had floated down its tea-colored waters.

Even in the tea-colored water the black lateral stripe was visible along its side.

The tea-colored water bulged, enveloping a surging largemouth.

Again, I let it sink a few moments before twitching it back through the tea-colored water.

Eventually, I came to where the creek's tea-colored waters emerged from a tangle of alders and emptied into the slough.