GEOGRAPHY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA 211 



As in the jack-pine and spruce forests of the far north, but un- 

 like anything else in or near Florida, fire sweeps through the scrub 

 about once in the life-time of a pine tree and kills the pines, which 

 however soon come up again from seed. Sometimes two crops 

 of pine of different ages can be seen close together (fig. 31). 



Scrub vegetation indicates veryj^oor soil, which is usually left 

 uncultivated, but it is utilized along the east coast, as noted in the 

 chapter on soils. 



Cypress ponds (fig. 24). These are a characteristic feature 

 of the pine-barren portions of the coastal plain from North Caro- 

 lina to eastern Louisiana, and they extend south in Florida to Palm 

 Beach County and the "Big Cypress" of Lee County. There seems 

 to be nothing similar in any other country on earth. Li the area 

 under consideration they are very abundant in the fl^woods re- 

 gions (except in the pebble phosphate country), rare in the lake re- 

 gion, and practically unknown in the others. In northern Florida 

 and neighboring states they usually contain more or less slash pine 

 (Pinns Ellioftii) or sometimes black gum, but south of Flagler 

 County the pines rarely enter the ponds, and there is commonly a 

 treeless strip a few yards wide around each pond, where the soil 

 is a little too dry for cypress and too wet for the common slash 

 pine of the peninsula (P. Carlbaea). In size the ponds may range 

 from one to a hundred acres or so, and the water may be as much 

 as three feet deep in the larger ones in wet seasons and disappear 

 entirely in dry seasons. The amount of seasonal fluctuation is in- 

 dicated roughly by the height of the enlarged bases of the trees. 



The pond cypress {Taxodium ascendens, or inibricariimi) is 

 usually almost the only tree. Sometimes it grows so densely as 

 to exclude nearly all other woody plants, and sometimes the cy- 

 presses are farther apart and there is a dense undergrowth of mostly 

 evergreen shrubs and a few^ vines, making an approach to the bay 

 type of vegetation. Air-plants of three or four species are often 

 abundant on the trunks and limbs of the cypresses, making a very 

 striking picture. In the shallow water below are a number of herbs 

 almost confined to such situations. A list of characteristic cypress 

 pond plants for the whole State was published in the Third Annual 

 Report (pages 262-263), ^"d that would not require much modifi- 

 cation to fit central Florida alone. 



