TRANSACTIONS OF WAGNER 

 74 



VEGETATION OF SOUTH FLORIDA 



the mail boat, were the live-oak, Quercus virginiana Mill., with large trunk and 

 spreading branches, catsclaw, Pithecolobium unguis-cati (L.) Benth. (in flower 

 and fruit), Icthyomethia piscipula (L.) A. S. Hitchcock, an irregularly branched 

 tree in flower and fruit with developing young leaves, Xanthoxylum fagara (L.) 

 Sarg. (in fruit), and Randia aculeata L. A single vine was noted, Smilax 

 Beyrichii Kunth. More attention will be given to the phenomenon of tropic 

 vegetation, where there is apparently no cessation in flower and fruit pro- 

 duction. Flowers are found on many of these trees and shrubs at the same 

 time that the mature fruits are ready for dehiscence, or ready to fall, from the 

 trees and shrubs. For such a phenomenon, I would suggest the name anthero- 

 carpic, from the Greek &vOi)pte= flowering, and /capTroj = fruit, rather than 

 anthocarpic-anthocarpous, because the latter term is applied to fruits with 

 accessory parts, sometimes termed pseudocarps, as the strawberry or pine- 

 apple. The use of the term anther ocar pic, therefore, for the condition of a 

 plant, which is flowering and fruiting at the same time, can have no ambi- 

 guity, especially if we attach the prefix syn (<7w=with) and make it synan- 

 therocarpic. 



MANGROVE VEGETATION 



The ecology of mangrove vegetation is fairly well understood by phyto- 

 geographers and botanists. We owe much to A. F. W. Schimper, who pub- 

 lished in 1891 in his "Botanische Mittheilungen aus den Tropen," a separate 

 brochure entitled "Die indo-malayische Strandflora. " Again in his "Pflanzen- 

 geographie auf physiologischer Grundlage, " we have a detailed presentation 

 of this highly important subject with a bibliography (pages 423-439). Later 

 under the caption Littoral Swamp Forest Mangrove, Warming in his "Oecol- 

 ogy of Plants" (1909) gives a useful summary of the species of mangrove 

 plants throughout the world and a statement as to the adaptation of the plants 

 to their environment with a consideration of histologic structure. One of the 

 latest general descriptions of mangrove plants is found in Holtermann's "In 

 der Tropenwelt" (1912, chapter I). Phillips, Pollard and Vaughan have de- 

 scribed the conditions of mangrove growth in Florida.* It is not with a 

 hope of adding very much concerning the general character of mangrove plants 



* Phillips, O. P.: How the Mangrove Trees add New Land to Florida. Journ. Geogr., n: 1-14; 

 Vaughan, T. W. : The Geologic Work of the Mangroves in Southern Florida, Smithsonian Mis- 

 cellaneous Collections, LII: 461-464. 



