NO. 17 SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, 1916 53 
BOTANICAL EXPLORATIONS IN FLORIDA AND NEW MEXICO 
During February and March, 1916, Mr. Paul C. Standley, of the 
division of plants, National Museum, spent about three weeks in 
the vicinity of Fort Myers, Lee County, on the west coast of southern 
Florida. Although the trip was a private undertaking, most of the 
time was spent in an investigation of the interesting flora of the 
region. 
This part of Florida is remarkable for its uniformly level surface, 
lying only a few feet above sea level, the soil consisting of almost 
pure white sand, with scarcely any humus, underlain by beds of 
marl. Rock exposures are infrequent and are confined chiefly to 
the banks of the small streams. The two most conspicuous plants 
are a large pine (Pius caribaea) and the saw palmetto (Serenoa 
serrulata). The former is a large tree, occurring everywhere in 
uniform, rather sparse stands. The saw palmetto is a palm, forming 
large dense patches two or three feet high almost throughout the 
pine woods. On close inspection the palmetto is seen really to be 
a tree or shrub, whose branching trunk is prostrate upon the surface 
of the soil and rooted to it. With these two plants are associated 
many kinds of herbs and low shrubs, some of them with very hand- 
some flowers. Coarse grasses and sedges are very abundant. 
The pine woods are interspersed with numerous cypress swamps 
of varying extent, shallow depressions into which the surface water 
drains, remaining for most of the year. The vegetation here is 
quite different from that of the sandy soil. The largest and by 
far the most abundant tree is the cypress, but it is accompanied by 
many shrubs and small trees, such as ash, maple, elm, holly, wild 
fig, custard apple, and numerous others less widely known, which 
are characteristic of subtropical regions. The wild fig is one of 
the most interesting plants of these swamps: commonly it is a shrub, 
but often it 1s a climber, with a long, slender, whitish, rope-like 
stem which ascends the cypress trees by means of aerial roots, 
sometimes to a height of sixty feet or more. The trees of the cypress 
swamps support a varied and often dense growth of epiphytes or 
air-plants, chiefly ferns, Spanish moss, bromeliads (7illandsia spp.), 
and orchids. Some plants which farther north are terrestrial become 
epiphytes in these swamps. Numerous species of herbaceous plants 
line the margins of the swamp ponds or “ lakes,” as they are known 
locally, which are frequented by flocks of water birds, and by many 
alligators and other reptiles. 
Fort Myers lies only about fifteen miles from the Gulf, and the 
small streams in the vicinity, as well as the large Caloosahatchee 
