TRANSACTIONS OF WAGNER 



VEGETATION OF SOUTH FLORIDA 



L. O. 53 Miles (Ft. L. 8 Miles). The high and sandy banks are covered 

 with grasses. The saw-grass expanses are dotted over with hammocks. 



L. O. 55 Miles (Ft. L. 6 Miles). Here we reach the eastern edge of the 

 Everglades where the cypress heads begin to be in evidence. The huge cypress 

 trees grow in dense stands loaded with epiphytes. The red-maple, Acer rubrum 

 L., was observed for the first time. Here is Sabal palmetto (Walt.) R. & S. 



New River. Here the cypress swamps blend with the river hammock vege- 

 tation, where the cypress is common together with custard-apple, Annona 

 glabra L., red-maple, Acer rubrum L., cocoa-plum, Chrysobalanus icaco L., 

 with such lianes as Smilax laurifolia L., bullace-grape, Muscadinia (Vitis) 

 Munsoniana (Simps.) Small. The tall palmetto trees support two character- 

 istic epiphytic ferns, Phlebodium aureum (L.) R. Br. and Vittaria lineata (L.) 

 J. E. Smith. 



It will be noted from the preceding account that the vegetation of this vast 

 tract of fresh-water marsh, known as the Everglades, is fairly uniform over the 

 whole region. The saw-grass is everywhere, the common and typic plant with 

 an admixture of less prominent species, with the lagoons and channels filled 

 with aquatic plants. Until canals were dug, it was a region of romance, 

 crossed only by the picturesque Seminole Indians and inhabited by a few rene- 

 gade white men, who have made travel through the unexplored portions of 

 South Florida dangerous. It is a region of great distances and solitudes with 

 bright suns, balmy air and clear unpolluted waters that are alive with fishes 

 that reduce the mosquito nuisance to a minimum by feeding upon the mosquito 

 larvae. Formerly thousands of alligators basked in the sun along the lagoons 

 that mirror the surface of the sea of saw-grass, but they are infrequent now, 

 only five having been seen by the writer in his boat trip from Ft. Myers to Ft. 

 Lauderdale across the entire peninsula. The bird life is remarkable for the 

 number of the large wading birds that frequent this vast marsh, formerly 

 unmolested by man, and which now lazily fly upward as the explorer approaches 

 them by boat. The stories of miasmatic vapors, of gloomy, malarious swamps 

 are without foundation, as there is no more healthful region in North America. 

 It has on account of its inaccessibility remained a terra incognita, but with the 

 opening of the drainage canals, it will be visited every year by increasing num- 

 bers of people. Sample areas of the wild vegetation of the Everglades ought 

 to be preserved and the interesting wild bird life carefully protected against 

 ruthless destruction. It has been the land of the Seminole. It will be a land 



