14. PANACEA COUNTRY. 297 



14. PANyVCEA COUNTRY. 

 (figure 79) 



Reference — Sellards & Gunter 3, p. 142 (analyses of water from Panacea 

 Springs). 



An area of perhaps 60 square miles around Panacea Springs, 

 in the southern part of Wakulla County, although it has no strik- 

 ing peculiarities, differs too much from all neighboring regions 

 to be incorporated with any of them. Topographically and in 

 some other ways it resembles the Bellair sand region (no. 12) 

 most, and if it was contiguous to that it might have been treated 

 as a part of it. Its vegetation, however, has mucli in common 

 with the neighboring Apalachicola flatwoods (no. 9). 



Geology and Soils — No outcrops of rock are known, and no 

 de'finite statement can be made about the geology. The soil is a 

 somewhat loamy sand of unknown depth, very similar to that in 

 region 12. Salamander-hills and ant-hills are common in it, and 

 gopher-holes occasional. The comparatively highly mineralized 

 waters of Panacea Springs indicate some peculiar formations be- 

 low the surface, which however seem to have no effect on- vege- 

 l;ition. 



Topography and Hydrography — The surface is nearly every- 

 where undulating, with many small basins. In the middle of the 

 legion some of th^ basins may be 20 feet deep or more, but to- 

 ward the coast the whole topography gradually flattens out. 

 Most of the basins contain water, which fluctuates comparatively 

 little, on account of its nearness to sea-level. Between Sopchoppy 

 and Panacea there are two southward-flowing creeks, Buckhorn 

 Creek on the west and Otter Creek on the east, with sour coffee- 

 colored water. Nothing is known at present of where they orig- 

 inate, as they are not shown on any available maps, but it is evi- 

 dent from the vegetation along them that they do not pass through 

 any distinctly calcareous or clayey country. 



Vegetation Types — The prevailing vegetation is of the high 

 pine land or black-jack ridge type, as in the Bellair region. Most of 

 the basins, however, contain bay vegetation, much like that in the 

 flatwoods a few miles to the westward. (The difference between 

 these bays and the cypress ponds and open ponds of region 12 is 

 doubtless correlated with differences in the amount of seasonal 

 fluctuation of the water, as pointed out under region 2.*) But 



*In this connection see also Bull. Torrey Bot. CUib 38:231-232. 1911. 



