378 IN LOWER FLORIDA WILDS 



more or less sticky during damp weather and when 

 they are thrown against the trunk or each other 

 they adhere and are soon solidly joined together. 

 They reach out and spread as they clutch like a 

 many fingered hand; in fact they are uncanny 

 things for they appear possessed of nerves, muscles, 

 and a sinister intelligence. The layers of growth, 

 largely made up of these fascicles, are far more 

 locked and complicated than those of a northern 

 sycamore. These roots may be thrown against 

 fences and buildings, and if so they catch on and 

 may hang in fantastic loops, or they drop into the 

 ground and in time the great tree becomes a 

 veritable banyan. 



The struggle for existence among plants begins 

 with the seed and never ends until death. Nature 

 has to be wonderfully fecund for not one seed in a 

 hundred, or in some cases a thousand, becomes a 

 mature plant. Down on the mud flats I have 

 seen the ground covered so thickly with young 

 seedling Laguncularias that they actually touched 

 each other. There were plants enough to' make a 

 hundred acres of forest could they have been 

 properly cared for. A visit to the same spot a 

 year later showed only here and there a young 



