68 THE PLANT WOELD 



There are two leading varieties of pine barrens: first, the "flat- 

 woods," with numerous slight depressions, which are ponds in wet 

 weather and are usually grown up with cypress and gum ; second, the 

 rolling barrens drained by small streams, which are bordered by almost 

 impenetrable thickets and strips of swamp. It is in the wet, shady 

 depths of these jungles that the handsomest of north Florida ferns, 

 Aspidium Floridanimi, finds its hiding place. Being a sub-evergreen it 

 may be potted any time in the winter and made an ornamental house 

 plant, but there are very few who see it, for the reason that its haunts 

 are almost inaccessible and abound in venomous snakes and red bugs. 

 The latter is a minute red insect, similar in structure to a spider, which 

 infests woods and swamps in the south. Ked bugs get brushed off on 

 to one's clothes from bushes and herbage, and climb up one's shoes from 

 beds of dead leaves. They crawl through the stockings to the ankles and 

 there or higher up, wherever there is a tender surface, they burrow into 

 the skin. Small red spots indicate where they are and become centers 

 of irritation, especially at night. Fortunately they are easilj^ killed or 

 stupefied by rubbing into the skin kerosene, grease, wet salt or a thin 

 lather of soap. Of all plants besides poisonous ones, I most dread to 

 collect Aspidium Floridanum, because of the great abundance of red 

 bugs wherever it grows. Once after making a collection of it I estimated 

 that one surface which I could cover with my two hands contained 500 

 of these insects, each with eight legs and two mandibles pawing and 

 clawing among the cutaneous nerves ! 



Another fern that is disagreeably^ associated in my mind with the 

 red bug is Cheilanthes microphylla. The night after my discovery and 

 collection of it on the Sister Islands, I camped out close to it' station. 

 With my shoes off I went to sleep on a blanket spread over some cedar 

 boughs. After a while I awoke with a senation as if blisters of Spanish 

 flies were on the soles of my feet. All the rest of the night I suffered 

 this torture without suspecting the cause, never having known red bugs 

 to go below the ankles or to cause such a burning pain. 



My most interesting day's experience with ferns ended almost as 

 disagreeably as the day of my finding the Cheilanthes. It was early in 

 April, 1881. On the morning of the day before, at Gainesville, I had 

 dropped a $20 gold piece into a liveryman's hand for a four day's ride 

 in a wagon with two horses and a negro driver. Driving southward we 

 crossed the Withlacoochee river by ferry and at night camped in the 

 woods. Near noon of the s^^cond day, we came to a dense forest with 

 ^\dld orange trees on its border. On entering the forest it seemed as if 

 I had suddenly entered another world, so different was it from anything 

 I had seen in this state of terribly monotonous and tame scenery. My 

 attention was first attracted to two skulls of cattle sticking in the narrow 



