TRANSACTIONS OF WAGNER 



VEGETATION OF SOUTH FLORIDA 



country between Upcohall and the Everglades. Although several different 

 kinds of hammock land may be distinguished, yet the constituent species that 

 are associated in these hammocks vary strikingly from place to place along the 

 river banks. Although we have limited the number of different formations in 

 the discussion which follows to a few selected, or generalized types, yet it 

 must be clearly understood that the ecologic composition of these different 

 formations is not as simple as the selected generalized name would suggest. 

 The transition from one type of formation to an adjoining formation, as one 

 ascends the river, is, as the following enumeration shows, almost kaleidoscopic, 

 which suggests the applicability of Jaccard's law on the distribution of species 

 in alpine meadows and pastures* to the hammock vegetation one meets in 

 ascending the Caloosahatchee River. Palm-tree vistas that reach into the 

 interior of the forest are broken by the palmetto hammocks, alternating with 

 open prairies, with pineland or oak-saw-palmetto sclerophyllous scrub. A 

 sudden bend of the stream will reveal one type of vegetation on the left bank 

 and an entirely different association on the right. Since the settlement of the 

 country much of the best river-bottom land has been cleared and planted to 

 orange trees which in some large plantations were almost entirely submerged 

 on June 20, 1912. The succession of hammocks and other formations noted 

 on ascending the river from Ft. Myers to Lake Hicpochee is tabulated below. 

 The formations on the right bank of the stream are placed in the right hand 

 column, those on the left bank on the left hand side of the page. Beginning 

 where the river narrows at Upcohall, the formations noted by me are as follows : 



UPCOHALL 



Pineland with scattered palmettos. Hammock. 



Prairie with pine groves and palmetto strips. 



RIVER VIEW 



Hammock facing prairie. Pineland. 



Pineland fronted with thicket. Hammock. 



Saw-Palmetto Scrub. Pine Savanna. 



Hammock. 



* Jaccard, Paul: Distribution de la flore alpine dans le bassin des Dranses. Bull. Soc. Vaud 

 des Sc. Nat. XXXVI: , 1901; fitude comparative de la Distribution florale dans une portion des 

 Alpes st du Jura. Bull. Soc. Vaud des Sc. Nat. XXXVII: S47~579- Lois de distribution florale 

 dans la zone alpine. Ibid., XXXVII, 1902; Gesetz der Pflanzenverteilung in der alpinen Region. 

 Flora go: 340-377, 1902; Nouvelle recherches sur la distribution florale. Bull. Soc. Vaud des Sc. 

 Nat. XLTV: 223-270, 1908; The Distribution of the Flora in the Alpine Zone, New Phytologist, XI: 

 37-30, 1912. Jaccard states: "Nous en pouvons conclure queledegrfde frequence d'uneesptce dans 

 une prairie donnte est essentiellement variable d'un point d un autre." From the studies presented in 

 the papers above, we may conclude that the infinite diversity of the alpine flora, and of the 

 associations which constitute it, is so great that probably no two square meters of vegetation in 

 the whole chain of the Alps possess exactly the same floristic composition. 



