TRANSACTIONS OF WAGNER 



VEGETATION OF SOUTH FLORIDA 



obovate or oval leaves. Quercus minima (Sarg.) Small with underground 

 stems occurs in the scrub near Ft. Lauderdale. Quercus Chapmanii Sarg. 

 is a rigid shrub with a dark bark which splits into irregular plates. Its 

 leaves are obovate, or oblong, thick, smooth and lustrous on the upper 

 surface and sparingly pubescent on the under surface. The spaces be- 

 tween the low oaks are filled with the glaucous, or silvered, form of the saw- 

 palmetto, Serenoa serrulata (Michx.) Hook., which, growing out of white sand, 

 gives a heightened effect to the prevailing grayish or white tone of the forest 

 floor (Plate II, Fig. 2). The prevailing color tones of the forest are the bluish- 

 green hues of the pines, the lighter and darker greens of the oaks and the 

 grayish-white color of the lower layer, which is also enhanced by the gray 

 lichens to be described later. Here and there, however, the gray tone is 

 splotched with dark-green, especially when the forest is open and the sand 

 relatively bare of other vegetation. Such open places are characterized by 

 the candelabra-like, branching rosemary, Ceratiola ericoides Michx. (Plate V, 

 Fig. i), an empetraceous shrub, which with the pines is a character plant of 

 these barrens, known locally as rosemary scrub. The heather-like rosemary is 

 related to a low shrub, Corema Conradii Torr., of rounded or cushion-like form, 

 found on the plains of New Jersey, in several places on the heaths of Nan- 

 tucket, and on the rocky islands off northern New England. Like Corema and 

 Empetrum, Ceratiola has small revolute leaves, so that they are narrowly linear, 

 or filiform, subulate. Sections that the writer has made of the leaves of the 

 three genera show under the microscope a typic roll structure with the stomata 

 on the under surface, thus opening into an air-still chamber. The rosemary is 

 an erect, evergreen shrub with whorled branches and reddish, dioecious flowers. 

 Outside of the sand hills of the east coast, it was noted by me in similar barrens 

 with Pinus clausa and Serenoa serrulata between Auburndale and Lakeland 

 in the western part of Polk County under similar edaphic conditions. On good 

 authority, rosemary scrub is found back of Naples in the western part of Lee 

 County. Similar scrub was studied by Nash* in Lake County, central Florida. 

 There beneath Pinus clausa (Engelm.) Vasey are low oaks in abundance associ- 

 ated with Ceratiola ericoides Michx., Persea humilis Nash, a shrub or small tree 

 with brown, silky pubescence, Bumelia lanuginosa (Michx.) Pursh, Ximenia 

 americana L., and the climbing vine, Smilax Beyrichii Kunth, which grows 



* Nash, George V.: Notes on Some Florida Plants. Bulletin Torrey Botanical Club, 22: 144, 

 April, 1895; also M ohr, C.: Plant Life of Alabama. Contrib. U. S. Nat'l Herb., vi: 112,130,599. 



