TRANSACTIONS OF WAGNER 



VEGETATION OF SOUTH FLORIDA 



and abundance in the forest, where it hangs down in dense, dark-green masses 

 from the branches of the trees above, that it promises to be an important 

 rubber-yielding species. In one place, where the railroad passes through the 

 forest, Amphistelma is so abundant as to bear down, or choke, the trees on 

 which it grows as a slender vine. 



The secondary growth of small trees and shrubs fills up the light space 

 and intervals beneath the dense canopy of lianes and branching trees of 

 the upper story. An oak, Quercus myrtifolia Willd., grows to be 6 meters 

 tall and is a constituent of the undergrowth. It is associated with an- 

 other small tree of the same height, Trema floridana Britt., with yellow 

 or orange drupes. A small tree of northern South America, Talisia pedi- 

 cellaris Radlk., was discovered by the writer in Brickell Hammock, as new 

 to Florida. It is included in Small's Miami Flora (p. 115) as a mem- 

 ber of the family Sapindaceae. The coral-bean, Erythrina arborea 

 (Chapm.) Small, with pods containing scarlet seeds, is a shrub 3-8 meters 

 tall and has deltoid to hastate leaflets and few-flowered racemes. The 

 writer was especially struck with this shrub as an important element of 

 the forest. A euphorbiaceous shrub, found also in the Florida keys, the 

 Bahamas and Cuba, grows in Brickell Hammock. It is Drypetes 

 lateriflora (Sw.) Krug & Urb. The dahoon, or yaupon, Ilex cassine L., with 

 red drupes, is a shrub, or small tree, with pubescent twigs. A number of 

 other shrubs, or small trees, are present in this forest, such as: lance- 

 wood, Ocotea Catesbyana (Michx.) Sarg., Geiger-tree, Sebesten (Cordia) 

 sebestena (L.) Britton, fiddlewood, Citharexylum fruticosum L., and 

 princewood, Exostema caribaeum (Jacq.) R. & S. Two shrubs, or small 

 trees, considered out of their systematic sequence, are common and showy 

 plants of the high hammock, viz., white-stopper, Eugenia axillaris (Sw.) 

 Willd., with elliptic leaves and black, spheroidal fruits and French-mulberry, 

 Callicarpa americana L. with serrate, rough leaves and clustered fruits which 

 are violet to magenta in color. Its common occurrence in the south in rich 

 woods is perhaps due to birds. The remaining shrubs collected by me in 

 Brickell Hammock belong to the family Rubiaceag. They are Hamelia erecta 

 Jacq., rough velvet-seed, Guettarda scabra Vent., snowberry, Chiococca and 

 two species of wild coffee, Psychotria undata Jacq. and P. Sulzneri Small. If 

 we consider Morinda roioc L. to be a shrub and not a vine, it should be included 

 as one of the rubiaceous shrubby constituents of the forest (Plate V, Fig. 2). 



