FORESTS OF MOIST AND SWAMPY LANDS. 117 



With these are associated creeping club moss (Lycopodium alopecu- 

 roides) and many species of the paludial plants found also on the flats 

 and in the swamps of the coast plain, including insectivorous sundews, 

 bladderworts, and pitcher plants. Characteristic species are: 



Limodorum pallidum. Drosera filiformis. l 



Lophiola aurea. 1 Utricularia juncea. 



Gyrotheca tinctoria. l Utricularia subulata. 1 



Juncus trigonocarpus. Sarracenia purpurea. l 



Eriocaulon decangulare. 1 Sarracenia psittadna. 



Drosera intermedia. 1 Sabbatia macrophylla. 



The Sarracenias mentioned, which are the most prominent, rest their 

 rosettes of urn-shaped leaves on the water-soaked peat moss. /Sarra- 

 cenia drwmnondii and S. rubra, with their trumpet-shaped, erect 

 leaves, are abundant on the black peaty soil which covers the undula- 

 tions where the impervious aluminous clays and compacted sands 

 prevail. In the middle of the spring these plants produce their one- 

 flowered scapes from stout rootstocks before the appearance of the 

 leaves. In midsummer,, when the leaves have attained their full 

 growth, the boggy hillsides and depressions present to a superficial 

 view the aspect of meadows richly adorned with flowers of white and 

 roseate tints, imparted by the white, purple- veined tops of the leaves 

 of these sarracenias. The display of these colors serves to attract 

 insects, which, entering the leaves in search of the sweets secreted 

 within, are entrapped, with no possibility of escape, and thus become 

 sources of nourishment to these plants. 



Mesophile and paludial forests. Evergreens, nearly all of them 

 types of the Louisianian area, predominate in the tree growth which 

 shades the damp or wet, more or less sandy, banks of the numerous 

 streams rising in the maritime pine belt. Magnolia, white bay, and 

 oaks with entire, narrow, persistent or semipersistent leaves (Quercus 

 laurifolia, Q. aquaticd), with Cuban pine, loblolly pine, rarely short- 

 leaf pine, pond cypress (Taxodium distichum imbricaria], and "juni- 

 per" or white cedar (Chamaecyparis tkyoides) largely prevail over the 

 deciduous black gum (Nyssa biflora), red gum, and swamp maples. 

 Groves of the pond or upland cypress just mentioned a variety closely 

 connected with the type by intermediate forms cover the shallow 

 pine-barren ponds and semiswampy woods of a poor, sandy soil desti- 

 tute of vegetable mold. This form of the cypress in the size and 

 quality of its wood is greatly inferior to the typical cypress of the 

 alluvial swamps, and is at once recognized by the leaves, which are 

 closely appressed to the deciduous, annual shoots. By this peculiarity 

 of the foliage a check to excessive transpiration is provided during 

 the time of drought, when the sandy soil is laid bare to the sun and its 

 supply of water is failing. The white cedar of the lower pine region 

 is met with most frequently in the sandy swamps around the head 



