GEOGRAPHY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA 197 



influenced the precipitation through the vegetation or in some other 

 way:* 



The summer rain falls mostly in the daytime, in the form of 

 short, heavy showers. 



Hurricanes visit this section occasionally, usually in late sum- 

 mer, the season of maximum precipitation. But they rarely do 

 much damage except near the coast, and even there they appear to 

 be less frequent and destructive than they are a little farther north 

 and south, though accurate statistics are not available. Torna- 

 does, popularly known as "cyclones," are almost unknown here, 

 those being chiefly confined to those parts of the United States that 

 have considerably more rain in early summer than in late summer. 



VEGETATION 



The vegetation of central Florida is even more diversified than 

 the soil, and far more than in most areas of the same size in the 

 eastern United States. About thirty natural types are here recog- 

 nized, and that number could possibly be doubled without undue 

 duplication if one cared to go into such minute details. Just what 

 constitutes a vegetation type is a disputed point. Some botanists 

 have described a multitude of "plant associations," some of them 

 consisting chiefly of a single species and occurring in strips or 

 patches only a few feet wide ; but in this work nothing less than sev- 

 eral acres in extent is considered. 



Even if there was no uncertainty about the size of the unit 

 it would still be difficult to devise a satisfactory classification, for 

 different types are related to each other in all sorts of ways, and 

 two apparently quite different ones may be merely different stages 

 of the same thing. In this work they will be taken up as nearly as 

 possible in order of complexity, beginning with places that have no 

 vegetation at all, and vegetation composed wholly of herbs, and 

 proceeding through shrubby types to dense forests made up of 

 trees, shrubs, herbs, mosses, epiphytes, parasites, etc. 



*Some of the discrepancies in this respect observable in other parts of the 

 table may be due to records too short to be accurate enough, or even to ty- 

 pographical or other errors. It seems a little strange, for example, that New 

 Smyrna should have the lowest summer percentages and the highest late sum- 

 mer excess at the same time. 



