riVV YORK 



TORREYA 



Vol. 26 No. 5 



September-October, 1926 



A MIDDLE FLORIDA CEDAR SWAMP 



Roland M. Harper 



Chamaecyparis thyoides, known as white cedar in the North 

 and juniper in the South, has a fairly wide but very irregular 

 distribution in the glaciated region and coastal plain, mainly 

 from Massachusetts to Mississippi and within 150 miles of the 

 coast.* It seems to skip most of Delaware and Maryland, all 

 of Virginia except Dismal Swamp, and all of Georgia except for 

 a locality near Juniper on the line between Talbot and Marion 

 Counties, though there are unconfirmed rumors of its occur- 

 rence elsewhere in that vicinity and in Okefinokee Swamp. In 

 Florida it ranges from Gadsden and Liberty Counties, just east 

 of the Apalachicola River, westward, and is chiefly confined to 

 the West Florida pine hills, a continuation of the Altamaha 

 Grit region of Georgia. f (The post-office of Juniper, in Gads- 

 den County, is probably named for it.) 



In December, 1924, a man in Bainbridge, Georgia, was adver- 

 tising in Jacksonville (Florida) papers that he had white cedar 

 or juniper poles for sale; and as I felt pretty sure that there 

 was no such tree growing in that corner of Georgia, I wrote 

 and asked him if his stock did not come from Florida. He 

 admitted that I had guessed correctly, and furnished informa- 

 tion showing that the cutting of Chamaecyparis poles (for 

 telephone wires, etc.) in Liberty and adjoining counties was 

 quite a flourishing industry, which I had not heard of in those 

 parts before. 



In January, 1925, I gave a news item about this industry, 



and the circumstances through which I had learned of it, to the 



- ; daily papers of Florida; and soon afterward I received a letter 



*— ^ * See Torreya 7: 198-200, Oct., 1907; Pop. Sci. Monthly 85: 347-348. 

 I 1914; Taylor, Mem. N. Y. Bot. Gard. 6: 79-88, pi. 6-10. 1916. 

 -^ t See Ann. Rep. Fla. Geol. Surv. 3: 218-219, 315, 352. 191 1; 6: 208, 

 ^^ 234, 238, 253, 423, 334, 342, 400. 1914. 



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