378 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1917. 



ditions of Paradise Key, but the writer hopes to portray some of the 

 most interesting animals and plants of the key itself as well as of 

 the surrounding Everglades, and to call attention to their inter- 

 relationship and interdependence, in the parts which they play as 

 hosts or guests, parasites or victims, food or feeders. Among the 

 groups considered will be plants of the marshes and sloughs, the forest 

 trees and their epiphytal covering of orchids, resurrection ferns, and 

 bromeiiads; climbing lianas, which here reach giant proportions; the 

 native palms of southern Florida, and the plants peculiar to the pine- 

 land region, especially the saw palmetto and the interesting cycad, 

 Zamia foiklana. 



Among the animals to be described are some of the most interest- 

 ing mollusks, spiders, insects, fishes, bactrachians, reptiles, birds, and 

 mammals; and finally an account will be given of the little-known 

 aboriginal Indians who inhabited southern Florida at the time of 

 its discover}' by Ponce de Leon, as well as of their successors, the 

 Seminoles, who still live in the Everglades. 



ROYAL PALM STATE PARK. 



The region under consideration lies in Dade County, Florida, about 

 90 miles south of Lake Okeechobee and 37 miles directly southwest of 

 Miami, in latitude 25° 24' north and longitude 80° 38' west of Green- 

 wich. In 1915 the State of Florida set aside Paradise Key, together 

 with an area of adjacent swamp land, as a public park. This, to- 

 gether with an additional tract afterwards donated for the purpose, 

 has received the name Royal Palm State Park. The park, which has 

 an area of 3 square miles, includes, besides the key itself and adjacent 

 marshland, a corner of pineland, called Palma-vista, the vegetation of 

 which is similar to that of other pinelands of southern Florida. 1 



Paradise Key owes its preservation from fires and other destructive 

 agencies chiefly to its isolation and to a deep slough near its eastward 

 border which never becomes dry, even during periods of the greatest 

 drought. Its conversion into a state park insures its conservation as 

 a plant reserve and bird sanctuary and as a permanent field for bio- 

 logical researck. Similar measures have been taken in other parts 

 of the United States, and it is hoped that the example will be widely 

 followed. 



Dr. H. C. Oberholser, of the United States Biological Survey, in 

 commending the creation of this park points out that the refuge which 

 it offers to birds is one which is very greatly needed in southern 

 Florida, and that its location is admirable for the purpose of preserv- 

 ing the wild life of the region. 



1 For an account of the creation of Royal Palm State Park the reader is referred to 

 the account of Mrs. W. S. Jennings in the Tropic Magazine of April, 1916, and to an 

 historical sketch of Paradise Key by Dr. J. K. Small in the Journal of the New York 

 Botanical Garden, vol. 17, p. 41, 1916. 



