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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



composition, luxuriant vegetation had 

 sprung up on nearly every part of the 

 banks. Prostrate herbs, among them 

 Bramia, formed dense carpets; while 

 morning-glory vines {Convolvulus) 

 formed mats. Plumelike bonesets {Eu- 

 patorium) and a brilliant yellow core- 

 opsis covered large areas. A score of 

 other kinds of bright-colored flowers 

 were in evidence nearly everywhere. A 

 milkweed relative (Philihertella), a 

 stout vine, with stems and branches 

 seventy feet long or more, ran over the 

 shores and banks in much the same way 

 as the railroad vine {Ipomoea Pes- 

 Capri) grows on the seabeaches. 



At the mouth of the canal we spent 

 several hours in lifting the "Barbee" 

 over the bar, as we had done when we 

 entered. After she glided into deep 

 water, we sailed up to the vicinity of 

 the mouth of Fisheating Creek and 

 then headed eastward for a point on the 

 opposite shore of the lake about mid- 

 way between Chancy Bay and Pelican 

 Lake, which course represented the 

 widest part of Okeechobee. We were 

 soon in ten feet of water and then made 

 rapid progress to the eastern shore. 



Owing to the low level of the water, 

 there was a very wide sandy beach 

 partly carpeted with grasses and sedges. 

 The hammock begins about the top of 

 the ridge with a fringe of cypress. 

 Back of this is a dense growth of maple 

 (Acer), holly (Ilex), ash (Fraxinus) , 

 and pond apple (Annona). The herba- 

 •ceous plant cover is so complete that 

 one rarely, if ever, sees the ground 

 upon which he is walking. One of the 

 more interesting herbaceous plants here 

 is the climbing valerian (Valeriana) , a 

 delicate vine with clusters of small 

 white or pink flowers'. Liverworts, 

 mosses, and ferns cover nearly all the 

 ground about the trees and also a great 

 part of the tree trunks themselves. 

 Several kinds of tropical ferns occur in 

 profusion, evidently owing to the pro- 

 tection afforded by the thirty-odd miles 

 of water lying to the westward. Every- 



where we had been, both in the Ever- 

 glades and on the western shore of the 

 lake, vegetation had been killed or se- 

 verely damaged by the almost unprece- 

 dented "freeze" of the preceding Feb- 

 ruary; but on the eastern shore and in 

 the hammock swamps behind it, there 

 was not the least sign of damage from 

 the severe frosts, and vegetation was as 

 fresh and luxuriant as it apparently 

 had been for ages. 



After sunset we weighed anchor and 

 proceeded southward to hunt for the 

 beacon that marked the entrance into 

 the lake of the West Palm Beach Canal. 

 Fortunately, this beacon was lighted 

 and we had no difficulty in finding our 

 way into the canal, where we tied up to 

 the bank for the night. At sunrise we 

 moved into the canal for a distance of 

 a couple of hundred yards, where sand 

 and humus were piled up higher than 

 elsewhere, and went ashore to explore a 

 magnificent hammock which clothed the 

 ridge that gradually sloped off into the 

 Everglades toward the east. 



This hammock is picturesque beyond 

 description. The trees for the most 

 part are pond apple. The trunks are 

 strongly buttressed, apparently thus de- 

 veloped so as better to maintain an up- 

 right posture on the soft mud floor. 

 Herbaceous plants and vines are present 

 in abundance. The most interesting 

 vine is a species of dew flower (Coni- 

 melina), which grows in mats and in 

 dense masses, often, with stems and 

 branches more than half an inch thick, 

 climbing into the trees to a height of 

 from fifteen to twenty feet. 



Here, too, the milkweed vine, instead 

 of growing on the ground, climbed into 

 the trees where it formed tangled 

 masses of stems and leaves on the tree 

 tops. We found evidence again, in the 

 presence of several tropical species of 

 epiphytic orchids on the pond apples, 

 of the protection afforded by the waters 

 of the lake against the cold westerly 

 Avinds. The tomato grew wild in the 

 hammock and was laden with myriads 



