5G Remarks upon East Florida. 
paratively low, and are a mostly submerged at high ste 
of the water. Between Lake George and Lake Monroe the banks 
are generally high enovigh to be dry, excepting where savannas 
prevail. Wherever the pine-barrens strike upon the river, the 
banks are eight or ten feet high, with a substratum of shelly soil 
or rock. ‘To Lake Monroe they are for the most part clothed 
with a growth of wood—chiefly live oak, pines, and cypress, as 
_ high as Lake George ; the palmetto or cabbage tree, being largely 
intermixed thence upwards. 
The grey moss clothes nearly all the trees upon the river, ex- 
cepting the pine and palmetto. ‘These are respected or avoided 
by this general associate of the trees, from some want of affinity 
which may not be understood. This moss is a most. singular 
production, having a rank luxuriance little according with its 
kindred 
species. It hangs from every bough many yards in 
length, and wears the appearance at a distance of dingy muslin 
thrown with a careless grace over every part of the tree, waving 
to and fro in the breeze and forming a most striking embellish- 
ment of the scene; and the effect is not diminished by the pres- 
ence of the tall and symmetrical palmetto, which rises up some 
forty or fifty feet perpendicular, like a perfectly wrought column, 
surmounted by a capital of most appropriate beauty. 'The moss 
never throws its foldings. over this handsome tree ; as 
before remarked, the pine is equally avoided by it. ‘This capri- 
cious forbearance with respect to these two kinds of trees, introdu- 
cesa beautiful variety into the river scene. Where the banks are 
high and sandy, the pine prevails; where they are low and wet, 
the cypress“ the melancholy cypress.” The live oak, and other 
miscellaneous trees, prefer the banks of an intermédiate character, 
_ as also the palmetto. The cypress seems to exclude all associa- 
tions ; no other trees mingle with it, or if they happen to start 
up along side they are soon overshadowed above by the spread- 
ing tops, or crowded out by the cone-like bases below, which last 
leave Only room for the thousand “ knees,” or sharp excrescences, 
from one to several feet high, which shoot up like so many wast 
piinacles. — 
Ascending the river, which is constantly winding and shifting 
the p of view, wherever the cypress permits, there the moss 
is ‘seen in all its sweeping luxuriance. As these trees spring from 
nearly a-water level, and grow to about an equal height, their flat 
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