104 IN LOWER FLORIDA WILDS 



an extent that I have never seen before or since. 

 In company with a Mr. Roberts, long a resident 

 of the south shore, and two other men staying at 

 Flamingo, our party started afoot for Coot Bay, 

 an arm of White Water Bay, about six miles in- 

 land. We passed through low inundated prairies 

 and hammocks with here and there a higher spot 

 cleared and planted in sugar cane. The soil is 

 wonderfully rich and where the cane had not 

 been killed by the overflow it was rank and fine. 



In one of the hammocks we found the papaw 

 (Carica papaya) growing abundantly as an under- 

 growth in the tall forest. I have never seen it so 

 fine and vigorous, even in the tropics. The plants 

 have perfectly straight trunks, smooth in the lower 

 part, often as large as a man's body and fully 

 twenty feet high. For a space of several feet the 

 upper part of the stem is clothed with leaves, 

 these having straight petioles three or four feet 

 long which, after shedding, leave peculiar orna- 

 mental scars on the trunk. The great palmate 

 blades are more than three feet across, forming a 

 beautiful crown extending well down the tree. At 

 the bases of the petioles were the yellow flowers 

 The tree is dioecious in most cases and the male 



