FREE INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE 



VEGETATION OF SOUTH FLORIDA 



genus Annona, as to the means of distribution of the custard-apple, elicited the 

 following information under date of Aug. 20, 1912: 



"Dear Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your recent 

 letter in which you ask suggestions as to how the swamp-apple, Annona glabra, 

 is dispersed. This is a question which has perplexed me. The associations 

 of this plant are with species of so-called mangroves of wide distribution. 

 This species itself occurs on both sides of tropical America, the Galapagos 

 islands and the west coast of Africa. It would be interesting to find out 

 whether detached branches take root readily in the mud. The wood is so 

 light, it is called corkwood, and the roots are used for corks and floats for nets. 

 An experiment might be made by breaking off limbs or roots, and after soaking 

 them for a time in salt water plant them in mud. I cannot find that their 

 fruits are any more buoyant than other Annonas. If it were birds that dis- 

 tributed the seeds, why would not the more attractive species be just as widely 

 dispersed? The seeds may possibly be borne by currents. They say that 

 the fruit is eaten by aquatic lizards, or iguanas of the Bahamas. I wonder if 

 they are carried from island to island." 



Large custard-apple trees are seen with enlarged bases, as if the influence 

 of submergence in water induced their formation. 



EVERGLADE FORMATION 



The Everglades (Pah-hay [h]-o-kee = grassy water) is an immense grassy 

 plain, covered in the wet season, June to November, with an average depth 

 of 66 cm. (26 inches) of water, so that it is an extensive marsh stretching 

 on all sides to the horizon line and relieved in some places by clumps of 

 bushes, or low trees, and characterized by lagoons, channels, or slues of open 

 water, or filled with various aquatic plants. Hence the meaning of the word 

 Everglades from ever, signifying all, or wholly grassy glade. They extend from 

 the southern margin of Lake Okeechobee some 144.8 kilometers (90 miles) to- 

 ward Cape Sable, the southwestern extremity of Florida, and vary in width 

 from 48 to 80 kilometers (30 to 50 miles). Two arms of saw-grass vegetation 

 extend northward on both sides of Lake Okeechobee, so that the lake is almost 

 completely surrounded, as is clearly shown in the accompanying phytogeo- 

 graphic map. It consists of an area of 1,136,000 hectares (4,000 square 

 miles, or about 2,560,000 acres)of marsh land. The normal surface of Lake 



