39 
stars of the meadow-pink (Sabbatia agers wee of 
of th vid 
- ’ wi 
yel ohn's-wort (Hypericum apalthide), and Fe 
greenish-yellow ues golden od (Ch nie nudata). On 
e@ margins of the prairies were ped praeiier y thickets or 
tangles. The vine-like branches grew to a h i: four or 
Pp 
Thus were formed matted jungles of stems and branches that 
rose above the prairie level. 
About the Kissimmee River we found large snapping-turtles, 
the first we had seen, ancy made ia ees kind we had ob- 
Th +h 
servi e gopher, the green- 
turtle, and the common land tortoise. The “snappers’’ were 
probably disturbed by the exceptionally high water of the river, 
which flooded the causeway which crosses the wide flood-plain 
of the river between Fort Bassenger and the settlement of 
i enger. 
across the Kissimmee we decided to make a bee-line for 
the pain noe instead of making a wide angle by running 
to impassable wet prairies, so we turned southward towards the 
Fort Bassenger trail and proceeded toward Okeechobee City 
that way. 
The Okeechobee prairie was quite barren of flowers, except 
on an occasional oasis, so to speak, where palm trees, bayber: 
bushes and dwarf grew. on one of these garden ae we 
found two pay s asters, two go saute (Solidago), t 
golden-ast (Ch, two butterworts (Pinguicula) aad 
Ge all; in full bloom. But therea ie rain set in and it 
i 
tinued—and so did we,—passing eae bearing nor inhabi- 
tant all along the many long miles t t Pierce, except four 
Seminole girls who rode three horses, a Baines these Indians 
ericoides) and the dodder-like vine, Cassytha americana. The 
latter is essentially leafless and the former is as copiously leafy 
