110 



A NATURE WOOING. 



stance well nigh indestructible, of which were built 

 the oldest forts and houses by the Caucasians in 

 America, those of the first settlers at St. Augustine. 

 J Tis the first cliff of any kind I have seen in Florida. 

 I rest my back and head against it and gaze down at 

 the dark waters of the Tomoka, deep, shadowy, slow 

 flowing. At my right is a cabbage palmetto, lifting 



its crown of leaves 

 fifty feet above 

 me. Bending far 

 out from the edge 

 jof the cliff and 

 overhanging the 

 water is a live 

 oak, unwedgeable 

 and gnarled, its 

 branches clad here 

 and there with 

 long pendent tufts 

 of gray Span- 

 ish moss. Poly- 

 pody ferns and 

 poison ivy spring 

 from the crevices 

 along the face of 

 the rock. A hand- 

 some climbing vine, with compound evergreen 

 leaves and red trumpet shaped flowers two inches in 

 length, twines among the tree tops and sprangles over 



Fig. 35 Cross Vine. (After Britton.) 



(Showing flowers aud fruit pod two-fifths natural size.) 



