FREE INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE 6 



VEGETATION OF SOUTH FLORIDA 



that when the water hyacinth floats out to sea the salt water soon shrivels its 

 leaves and kills it. 



The bay beach was littered with fragments of shells, cases of sea urchins, 

 etc. A reddish fiddler-crab by the tens of thousands scuttled over the beach 

 with a rustling noise, which was intensified by the crabs knocking against 

 the shell fragments and rattling them. After the phenomenal rains of 

 June, 1912, the river water, charged with vegetal matter and mud, was of 

 a dark chocolate color, even as far out as Sanibel Island, where it met the 

 light greenish water of the Gulf in a sharp line of separation. The growing vege- 

 tation of the bay beach consisted on June 10, 1912, of the prostrate stems of 

 Canavalia lineata (Thunb.) DC. in flower, and Ipomoea pes-caprae (L.) 

 Sweet, in flower, both plants found in the new growth of the seaside oats, 

 Uniola paniculata, associated with another grass, Distichlis spicata (L.) 

 Greene. The herbaceous plants include Cyperus ottonis Bceckl., Atriplex 

 cristata H. B. K. Dondia linearis (Ell.) Millsp., Sesuvium portulacastrum L. 

 (a succulent), growing in thick mats, Chamaesyce buxifolia (Lam.) Small, 

 Phyla nodiflora (L.) Greene, Melanthera deltoidea Michx., Bidens leu- 

 cantha (L.) Willd. The presence of the succulent-stemmed Cactaceae in 

 Opuntia Dillenii Haw., Acanthocereus pentagonus (L.) Britt. & Rose and the 

 leathery or succulent-leaved Agave decipiens Baker, Yucca aloifolia L. 

 heightens the impression of a Litorideserta, or littoral desert.* The shrubs 

 or low trees of the upper bay beach include Sabal palmetto (Walt.) R. & S., 

 Coccolobis uvifera (L.) Jacq., Croton punctatus Jacq., Sophora tomentosa 

 L., Conocarpus erectus L., Borrichia frutescens (L.) DC. All of these plants, 

 herbs and shrubs alike, merge with the thicket vegetation to be described in 

 detail in another section. 



The beach at Punta Rassa across San Carlos Bay has a somewhat 

 poorer flora. Here the most conspicuous species of the beach proper are 

 Uniola paniculata, Canavalia lineata (Thunb.) DC., Ipomoea pes-caprae (L.) 

 Sweet, Heliotropium polyphyllum Lehm., and Bradburya virginiana (L.) 

 Kuntze. The shrubs that grow on the beach, or rather outer edge of the 

 thicket, where they encroach upon the beach are seaside-grape, Coccolobis 

 uvifera (L.) Jacq., and cocoa-plum, Chrysobalanus icaco L. This beach is 

 rather exposed to the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico and to tidal currents 



* Brockmann, Jerosch H., and Riibel, E.: "Die Einteilung der Pflanzengesellschaften nach 

 Okologisch-Physiognomischen Gesichtspunkten," 1912, 56. 



