THE PLANT WORLD 285 



badly injured that they might as well be dead. A fine Passiflora p/ordti, 

 which had climbed a tree to a height of 25 feet, was carried down by the 

 tree which was blown over. I unfastened it and led it to a tree near by, 

 where for some little time it seemed to be all right, but it turned yellow 

 and died root and branch. Several other passion vines, Clerodendron 

 thompsoni, Cissus discolor, Stephanotis floribvnda, Lygodmm scandens, 

 Antigoyi07i Icptopus, Manettia bicolor, and M. cordi folia have beenkilled back, 

 and in several cases are apparently dying. A fine Ipomoea leari had 

 climbed some ten feet up a string on a live oak. Since then it has died 

 back to near the ground and has repeatedly put forth feeble shoots and 

 leaves, but it is in a very unhealthy condition. Since the storm a seed 

 of Canavalia obtnsifolia came up on the opposite side of the same tree, and 

 at present the vine is twelve feet high and in full vigor. /poj)ioea bona-?iox, 

 which climbs to the tops of the loftiest trees, has died back in many cases 

 almost to the ground, and is only making sickl}^ straggling growth. Vitis 

 rotundifolia, which is everywhere most abundant in the hammocks, is in 

 a very bad condition ; the same is true of the common Virginia creeper, 

 the poison oak, Echites paludosa, Metastebna, etc. The vines which have 

 climbed trees are generally sick, dying, or dead. In some cases they were 

 severely damaged by being switched and thrashed about in the storm, but 

 I do not believe this to be the main cause of the trouble. 



Flammarion, in "The Atmosphere," Harper's edition, page 336, tells 

 of a hurricane which occurred in St. Vincent in which a whole forest was 

 killed by electricity without a tree being thrown down, and of another in 

 Europe in which many trees had their bark skinned off, though they 

 remained upright. I am strongly inclined to believe that the electricity 

 in the atmosphere caused the damage to the vines of this region ; that 

 while it was not sufficiently powerful to kill the trees, it caused the vines 

 on them to act as conductors with most disastrous, if not immediate, 

 effect. As evidence in this direction I have an Ipomoea from Cuba 

 (/. sidaefolia perhaps) which had climbed twent)^ feet or more up a tree and 

 was growing with remarkable vigor at the time of the storm. Since then 

 it has died back nearly to the ground, and has only thrown out a few 

 sickly, feeble growths. A neighbor who has the same plant, which covered 

 an extensive arbor some seven feet high, had the arbor blown down and 

 the vines so badly whipped with the wind that he was obliged to cut up 

 and throw away quantities of them in order to rebuild. But it has 

 immediately started into the strongest, most healthy growth, so that at this 

 writing the vine entirely covers the arbor, and is full of blossom buds. 



I have a large number of native and exotic Tillandsias, orchids, and 

 other epiphytes on the trees of my hammock, and except where these 

 were torn loose, they appear to be uninjured. 



Lemon City, Florida. 



