NO. 17 SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, I916 53 



BOTANICAL EXPLORATIONS IN FLORIDA AND NEW MEXICO 



During" l^^bruary an<l March. iyi6, Mr. Paul C. Standley, of the 

 division of ])lants, National Museum, spent about three weeks in 

 the vicinity of Fort Myers, Lee County, on the west coast of southern 

 Florida. Although the trip was a private undertaking", most of the 

 time was spent in an investigation of the interesting t^ora of the 

 region. 



This jxirt of Florida is remarkalile for its uniformly level surface, 

 lying only a few feet al)0ve sea level, the soil consisting" of almost 

 pure white sand, with scarcely any humus, underlain by beds of 

 marl. Rock exposures are infrequent and are confined chiefly to 

 the banks of the small streams. The two most conspicuoiis plants 

 are a large pine {Piiius caribaca) and the saw palmetto (Scrciioa 

 scrrulata) . The former is a large tree, occurring everywhere in 

 uniform, rather sparse stands. The saw ]:)almetto is a palm, forming" 

 large dense jiatches two or three feet high almost throughout the 

 pine woods. On close inspection the palmetto is seen really to l)e 

 a tree or shrub, whose branching trunk is prostrate upon the surface 

 of the soil and rooted to it. With these two plants are associated 

 many kinds of herbs and low shrubs, some of them with very hand- 

 some flowers. Coarse grasses and sedges are very abundant. 



The pine woods are interspersed with numerous cypress swamps 

 of varying extent, shallow depressions into which the surface water 

 drains, remaining for most of the year. The vegetation here is 

 quite different from that of the sandy soil. The largest and by 

 far the most abundant tree is the cypress, but it is accompanied by 

 many shrubs and small trees, such as ash, maple, elm, holly, wild 

 fig, custard apple, and numerous others less widely known, which 

 are characteristic of subtropical regions. The wild fig is one of 

 the most interesting plants of these swamps: commonly it is a shrub, 

 but often it is a climber, with a long, slender, whitish, rope-like 

 stem which ascends the cypress trees by means of aerial roots, 

 sometimes to a height of sixty feet or more. The trees of the cvjM'ess 

 swami:)s support a varied and often dense growth of ejjiphytes or 

 air-plants, chiefiy ferns, Spanish moss, bromeliads (Tillaiidsia spp.), 

 and orchids. Some ])lant^ which farther north are terrestrial become 

 epijjhytes in these swamps. Numerous species of herbaceous plants 

 line the margins of the swamp ponds or " lakes," as they are known 

 locally, which are frecjuented by flocks of water birds, and b^' man^ 

 alligators and other reptiles. 



I'ort Myers lies only about fifteen miles from the (Julf, and the 

 small streams in the vicinity, as well as the large Caloosahatchee 



