CATALOG OF INDIGENOUS AND NATURALIZED 

 PLANTS. 



NATIVE PALMS. 



Florida is quite rich in palms for a region lying wholly outside 

 the tropics, for no less than sixteen species have been found 

 growing wild within its limits. A part of these, Inodes, Sabal 

 adansoni, Rhapidophyllum hystrix and Serenoa serrulata are 

 probably derived from an ancient warm temperate flora that 

 was driven south during the Glacial Epoch, while the other 

 species, no doubt, are derived directly from the American 

 Tropics. The common coconut (Cocos nucifera), now believed 

 to be a native of Tropical America and not of the Old World as 

 was formerly supposed, has become completely naturalized on the 

 keys and in the lower part of the state. 



Oreodoxa regia. First among our native palms and, for that 

 matter, one of the first in the world, is the royal palm. It 

 occurs in Florida abundantly at the Royal Palm Hammock at 

 some distance inland from Cape Romano, on the southwest 

 coast of the state; on Harney River and Rogers River just north 

 of Cape Sable and here and there to some distance to the east- 

 ward of the cape not very far away from the sea. A large 

 number are found at Paradise Key in the southeast part of Dade 

 County, this being an island in the Everglades. Until recently 

 a few specimens grew in brackish hammock just north of my 

 home near Little River. They were in a forest of giant Avicen- 

 nias, Annonas, Conocarpus and mangroves, the latter the largest 

 and finest I have ever seen. Some of these were a hundred feet 

 high and six feet in diameter. In this strange forest there was 

 a dense growth of wild calabash (Crescentia latifolia), Pavonia 

 racemosa, ordinarily a shrub but here attaining the dimensions 

 of a tree, and two species of giant Acrostichums, the fronds of 

 which reached a height of a dozen feet. All this splendid growth 

 was destroyed by the hand of brutal, greedy man in the hope 

 of making money from tannic acid in the bark of the mangroves. 



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