TRANSACTIONS OF WAGNER 

 5" 



VEGETATION OF SOUTH FLORIDA 



and owing to the honeycombed character of the rock, which is in some 

 places full of larger and smaller pot holes. 



The limestone country is one of little relief. The maximum elevation 

 of the ledges south of Miami may be ten meters (30 feet) above sea level, 

 but the rise is so gradual as to be almost imperceptible. The maximum 

 elevation on Long Key in the Everglades, and at New River, is about two 

 and a half meters (eight feet). 



West of the Bahia Honda Passage and comprising an extreme western 

 series of islands (see previous classification of keys) are a number of keys 

 characterized by a limestone rock known to the Florida geologists as Key 

 West oolite, which is a soft, white, or light-colored, fossiliferous oolitic 

 limestone, less sandy than the Miami oolite. Such keys as Big Pine, 

 Little Pine, Cudjoe and Key West belong to the western series of keys, 

 where the oolitic limestone prevails. The Miami and Key West oolites 

 differ so slightly that they may be assumed to have had a common origin. A 

 study of the vegetation found on these oolitic limestones bears out their 

 common character and I, therefore, propose for oolite of common origin, 

 and perhaps age, the name Miami-Key West oolite. Outcrops of the Miami- 

 Key West oolite are not known north of Delray, nor anywhere on the west 

 coast. Exposures of it occur in bluffs near Miami and in low ridges a few 

 miles west of that town. However, much of the Miami-Key West oolite 

 is flat- topped, and this is true also of the smooth exposures in the keys west 

 of Bahia Honda. From the evidence of plant distribution, the writer be- 

 lieves that the outcrops of Miami-Key West oolite were elevated sooner 

 above the surface than the Key Largo limestone, which forms the material 

 out of which the connecting chain of keys is composed, for it has been 

 recognized that the elevated reef that forms the backbone of the main 

 series of islands from Bahia Honda to Soldier Key consists of coralline 

 material. 



The Key Largo limestone represents the only known fossil coral reef 

 in southern Florida, and lithologically, it is differentiated sharply from any 

 of the other limestone of the mainland and keys. In all probability, it was 

 built up from a depth of 30 km. (100 feet). The Key Largo limestone may 

 be in part contemporaneous with the Miami-Key West oolite which is believed 

 to represent shallow water deposits formed behind the coral reef and finally 

 extended over it, for in places the Miami-Key West oolite rests on the Key 



