268 The Plant World. 



THE HAMMOCKS AND EVERGLADES OF SOUTHEi.N 



FLORIDA * 



Ernst A. Bessey. 



To the botanist visiting soathern Florida for the first time 

 the objects of greatest botanical interest are usually the ham- 

 mocks and the Everglades, although the mangrove swamps, the 

 tropical strand formation and the marine algae will not lack in 

 interest. 



Let me at once dispel any notion that may have been given 

 by my use of the word hammock that the visiting botanist will 

 take his ease in one of those net-like contrivances so popular in 

 the summer time on moonhght nights. As used in Florida the 

 word hammock means a dense wood of broad-leaved trees, 

 usually Dicotyledonous but sometimes of palmettoes, in marked 

 contrast to the open pine woods which form the greater part of 

 the forest covering of Florida. 



In order to understand just what a hammock is it will be 

 well first to describe the pine woods in which these hammocks 

 are set, as it were,as islands. In Southern Florida, especiallv in 

 the vicinity of Miami, where the observations of the writer were 

 made, the species of pine concerned is Pinuscaribaea,th.e Cuban 

 or slash pine. Trees of this specie? may attain a height of over 

 30 meters and a diameter of a meter, although this is larger than 

 the majority of trees of this species. They stand rather distantly 

 from one another, frequently being 6 to 10 or more meters apart, 

 thus forming a very open forest. The tops are rather small and 

 do not give much shade, so that these open pine forests are 

 bright and sunny and have few of the characteristics of the 

 dense coniferous forests of the North. It is frequently possible 

 to see objects at a distance of 800 or more meters in such a forest, 

 .>o scattered are the trees. Among these pines grow dwarf pal- 

 mettoes and other palms with prostrate or underground stems, 

 as well as Zaniia and various other low plants, Typically there 

 is no dense shrubby undergrowth in these pine woods but only 

 scattered small shrubs and herbaceous plants. 



The hammocks form the greatest possible contrast to the 

 pine woods in which they are generally found. They may be of 



•Read before the Michigan Academy of Sciences, April, 1911. 



