GEOGRAPHY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA 20$ 



and therefore to be. classed as thickets. The shrnljs are nearly all 

 evergreen, and the soil very poor and seldom cultivated. 



SMALL TREES 



Mangrove sunuips (fig. t,"/). On the margins of shallow quiet 

 bodies of salt water from Brevard and Pinellas Counties southward 

 are swamps composed of salt-loving small trees and large shrubs 

 mainly tropical in distribution, particularly the black, red and white 

 mangroves (Avicennia, Rhizophora and Lagimciilaria) and button- 

 wood (Conocarpiis). The first-named extends northward in 

 shrubby form to Cedar Keys and New Smyrna and perhaps far- 

 ther. In extreme southern Florida the first two become trees of 

 considerable size, and the red mangrove is used for tan-bark and 

 the button wood for fuel. 



[ 



Fig. 37. Mangrove swamp on inner side of Long Key, Pinellas County. 

 The larger trunks at the left belong to the black mangrove (Avicennia), and 

 the innumerable erect pipe-stem-like objects are its aerating organs. The seed- 

 lings and smaller crooked trunks are red mangrove {Rhizophora): March ii- 

 1915. 



Tropical hammocks (fig. 34). The plants growing on shell 

 mounds along the Indian River in southern Brevard County are 

 nearly all of tropical species, quite different from the species of 

 more northerly distribution on sandy soils nearby. The forests 

 are very dense, and the trees rather small and crooked, though 

 they all grow larger in the hammocks south of Miami, and in the 



