226 



else in the world, and a few other rare plants, as well as being the 

 southern limit of quite a number of shade-loving species which 

 are more common in the mountains a few hundred miles farther 

 north.* 



For nearly a quarter of a century geologists have been attracted 

 to the same region by the splendid sections of certain Oligocene 

 and Miocene formations exposed in these bluffs, some of which 

 are over 150 feet high.f But the flat country between Bristol 

 and the coast has been almost universally regarded by geologists 

 as devoid of interest,! apparently because no fossils are found 

 there. And except in the immediate vicinity of Apalachicola, 

 at the mouth of the river, almost no botanical work has been done 

 along the lower Apalachicola, perhaps chiefly because the flat 

 country is very thinly settled and there are few accommodations 

 for travelers along that part of the river. 



Notwithstanding Drummond's botanical discoveries near 

 Apalachicola in 1835,! Dr. A. W. Chapman's residence there from 

 1847 to 1899, and the visits of several other botanists to the 

 place during that period — all of whom must have traveled on 

 the river in going or coming, for Apalachicola had no railroad 

 until 1907 — no one hitherto seems to have thought it worth while 

 to describe the vegetation observable from a boat on the lower 

 portions of the river, and thus some significant and more or less 

 important facts have never been brought to the attention of the 

 public. 



At noon on April 25, 1910, I embarked at Apalachicola on a 

 commodious river steamboat bound upstream, and by nightfall 



* See Gray, A pilgrimage to Torreya, Scientific Papers of Asa Gray i: i88- 

 196. 1889) Curtiss, Tenth Census U. S. 9: 521. 1884; Chapman, Bot. Gaz. 10: 

 251-254. 1885; Cowles, Rep. 8th Int. Geog. Cong. 599. 1905. 



t See Sellards & Gunter, Ann. Rep. Fla. Geol. Surv. 2: 261-279. 1910; and 

 several earlier papers there referred to. (On page 261, "middle west Florida" 

 should read "western Middle Florida," and "from Gibson to Havana" [Florida] 

 should be "near Fowlstown, Georgia." On page 266, "St. Andrews Bay" was 

 evidently intended for Apalachicola Bay.) 



J See E. A Smith, Tenth Census U. S. 6: 226, 241. 1884; W. H. Dall, Bull. 

 U. S. Geol. Surv. 84: 95. 1892; Dall & Stanley- Brown, Bull. Geol. Soc. Am. 5: 

 150. 1894. 



§ Comp. Bot. Mag. i: 16. 1835; Sargent, Silva N. A. 7: no. 1895. 



