THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



lioary summits beautifully festooned M'itli Florida moss. The cypress 

 trees being deciduous, and this the winter season, they were almost 

 leafless, but this, although in some respects a drawback, was not without 

 its advantages, at it gave an opportunity of looking some distance into 

 the dense wood, and among the tangled masses of vegetation which 

 everywhere met the eye. Among the trees in foliage, the Cabbage 

 Palm formed the most striking feature, growing from ten to thirty or 

 forty feet high, with its huge blustel's of leaves capping a beautiful 

 coluiimaf trunk bristling along the upper portion with the remnants 

 of leaf-stalks not yet shed. The hanging moss, Tillandsia usneoides, 

 grows everywhere and festoons everything, giving the whole scene a 

 unique and fantastic appearance. Some of the palms had lovely 

 clusters of ferns growing at their summits, rooted in the base of theii' 

 leafstalks. There was a very luxuriant Aster in flower all along the 

 w^ater course, a plant of a semi-climbing habit, twining about among 

 the shrubs until it attains a height of six or eight feet or more, a mass 

 of bright bloom, festooning the bushes to the water's edge. There 

 \vere a great variety of shrubs, many of them evergreen, such as Bays, 

 Hollies, &c., also climbers, and plants in profusion, including Orchids^ 

 which were parasitic on the trees, growing all the way up their trunks 

 to a great height. We saw many beautiful water plants in floM'er> 

 among others the Star Lily, which is very pretty. There was an 

 abundance of what appeared to be a species of Tropaeolum, very like 

 our common Nasturtium, also very many beautiful grasses. 



All day long the sun shone out with a pleasant warmth, it.s 

 brightness adding beauty to the ever changing panorama which was 

 passing before our eyes. By sunset we had reached Silver Springs 

 Run, and another hour brought us to the Silver Springs. These 

 springs are marvellous for the abundance of their waters and their 

 perfect transparency. A deep river, a hundred feet wide, is created 

 and maintained by them, which after a course of seven miles forms a 

 junction with the Ocklawaha. At the Springs the transparency of the 

 water is so perfect that every object can l)e seen at the bottom of the 

 water almost as distinctly as iu the air. It was dark when we got 

 there, but tlie water was so illuminated with fires of pine knots burning 

 on the upper deck of our vessel and along the shore, that we could see 

 quite clearly to the bottom — a depth of from fifty to seventy feet. 

 There were large beds of white sand at the bottom, on which we could 



