206 FLORIDA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY I3TH ANNUAL REPORT 



West Indies. The trees are nearly all evergreen, and most of them 

 have small fleshy fruits, adapted for distribution by birds. Species 

 belonging to entirely different families often look much alike, and 

 are difficult to distinguish even when in bloom, for the flowers 

 are rather inconspicuous. Characteristic trees are the gumbo-limbo 

 (Biirsera), mastic {Sidcroxylon) , rubber or wild fig {Ficus), and 

 pigeon plum (Coccolobis laurifolia). Shrubs and herbs make up a 

 very small part of the total bulk of vegetation. Fire is very rare, 

 as in other hammocks, and the ground is covered with a thin layer 

 of humus. These hammocks are too limited in extent in central 

 Florida, and the trees in them too small, to be of any economic im- 

 portance. 



TALL TREES 



Palm savannas (figs. 4, 32). These are of two principal types, 

 wet and dry. The first is found principally around the head of 

 Indian River and Newfound Harbor on the east coast, and near the 

 Gulf coast in Citrus and Hernando Counties, where there are thou- 

 sands of acres of damp and presumably marly flats close to sea- 

 level, on which the cabbage palmetto' is almost the only tree, and 

 there are very few shrubs. On Merritt's Island the herbaceous veg- 

 etation is mostly switch-grass (Sparfina Bakeri), but elsewhere 

 there is greater variety. These savannas are evidently subject to 

 fire, but probably not so often as the pine forests. 



The second type occurs among the dunes of Long Key in Pi- 

 nellas County, and probably elsewhere along that coast. The soil 

 is sand with a considerable admixture of shell fragments, and the 

 topography is diversified with miniature hills and hollows produced 

 by the wind. The trees are all cabbage palmetto, and there is a 

 sparse undergrowth of a few bushes. and vines and many herbs, 

 largely of the same species found in calcareous flatwoods and in 

 meadow-like dune hollows on Anastasia Island.* Some evidences 

 of fire were noted on Long Key, but nothing is known of its fre- 

 quency. The herbage affords a little grazing. 



A transition between palm savannas and low hammocks is found 

 near the head of the Indian River and elsewhere, especially around 

 Homosassa, where there are dense shady forests composed almost 

 entirely of cabbage palmetto. 



*See 6th Ann. Rep., pp. 304, 339, 398. 



