TRANSACTIONS OF WAGNER 

 142 



VEGETATION OF SOUTH FLORIDA 



Along the shore here is open and clean sand. The ridge of sand, or ancient 

 dunes, is clothed with bald-cypress and palmetto and the growth is almost 

 impenetrable in many places. According to Small,* we find the maple, Acer 

 carolinianum Walt., holly, Ilex cassine L., pop-ash, Fraxinus caroliniana Mill., 

 many shrubs and herbs associated with the cypress trees. The cypress swamp 

 along the north and northeast shore of Lake Okeechobee ascends Taylor Creek 

 and stretches along the eastern shore of the lake to T. P. 41 S., which is one sec- 

 tion north of Pelican Bay and the outlet of the projected West Palm Beach 

 Canal. Cypress swamps (see map) are found along the eastern border of the 

 Everglades and the headwaters of the larger streams that flow eastward into 

 the Atlantic. The largest cypress swamp in South Florida is known as the 

 Big Cypress. It is west of the Everglades in the southwestern part of the 

 peninsula. As the Everglades occupy part of the lake basin of an ancient Lake 

 Okeechobee, the cypress, which is found on the shores of the present lake, is 

 continued southward along the edge of the ancient lake, now the eastern and 

 western borders of the Everglades. A large body of bald-cypress is found 

 along the border of the Everglades, where the Loxahatchee Marsh meets the 

 'Glades. It continues some distance on both sides of the Loxahatchee Marsh, 

 as it extends north to drain north into Jupiter River. From the Loxahatchee 

 Marsh (see map), the cypress continues in bodies of greater or less size, often 

 interrupted in their continuity, as far south as Cypress Creek. There the al- 

 most continuous cypress border is broken and the cypress groves are only 

 found about the headwaters of such rivers as the New and the Miami. 



The exact size of the Big Cypress Swamp (Indian name, Atseenahoofa) is 

 not known with any exactitude. Sargent in his Tenth Census Report on the 

 Forests of the United States (page 52) says that it is about 236 kilometers (85 

 miles) long and 32 kilometers (20 miles) wide, and covers about 259,000 hec- 

 tares (1000 square miles). These figures are probably too great, as the country 

 which was formerly included in the Big Cypress has been proved by several 

 surveys to be of a diversified character. The cypress swamps alternate with 

 hammocks, prairies, swamp-land and pineland, so that there are not continuous 

 bodies of cypress. However that may be, the Big Cypress represents the 

 largest undisturbed cypress forest in the world. 



Branch Cypress Swamps. These are cypress swamps that are found in 



" Small, John K. : Exploration in the Everglades and on the Florida Keys. Journ. N. Y. Bot. 

 Card., 15: 69-79, Apr., 1914. 



