208 IN LOWER FLORIDA WILDS 



fighting desperately for moisture and plant food. 

 Those of the West Indian trees are better fitted for 

 obtaining a share in such forests than are the oak 

 roots, or those of the red bays, the persimmon, or 

 prickly ash of our Southern States. It is for this 

 that the latter invariably give way before the 

 former the trained soldiers of the tropics. One 

 will find hundreds of seedlings and young trees 

 of tropical species in the midst of old and estab- 

 lished hammocks, but it is rare indeed to en- 

 counter a young live oak or sweet bay in like 

 situation, but if he does he may be sure it is 

 doomed to early death. 



But the especial enemy of the live oak is our 

 common strangler, Ficus aurea, an account of 

 which is given in the chapter on the survival of the 

 fittest. In any large hammock a number of these 

 old patriarchs may be seen enfolded in the stifling 

 embrace of this terrible Ficus. This, then, is the 

 arrow that reaches the heel of our hammock 

 Achilles. Whenever in the dim, crowded forest 

 one of these monarch oaks dies of old age or stran- 

 gulation no other comes to take its place. It is 

 one of the injustices of nature that this noble tree 

 which has fought the fire with matchless courage 



