m 



52 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 206. 



Notes on the Mid-winter Vegetation of Central 

 Florida. 



A BRIEF visit to central Florida, extending over the last 

 fortnight of December and the early days of January, af- 

 forded an opportunity for making some general studies of the 

 vegetation there. At first sight, perhaps, the most striking 

 cliaracteristic of the flora as a whole is the sharp line of 

 demarkation between the species occupying different, but ad- 

 jacent stations, corresponding mainly to difference in soil. 

 The two main divisions of this kind are termed Pine-land or 

 barrens, and hanimock. On the Pine-land two species only 

 are predominant — the Long-leaved Pine and the Saw Pal- 

 metto. Tlie former are usually of small size, perhaps htty feet 

 in height, with trunks a foot in diameter, rather sparselj' scat- 

 tered as to numbers, the trunks usually unfurnished with 

 branches except at the upper part, while the undergrowth is 

 almost everywhere the Saw Palmetto, often abundant enough 

 to nearly cover the soil, which seems to consist of nothing but 

 white sand. Whatever may be the appearance of these Pine- 

 lands at other seasons, they are at midwinter sufficiently bar- 

 ren and dreary. 



In marked contrast to this is the hammock. Here we find 

 a vegetation suggestive of tropical luxuriance. There are 

 many kinds of trees, some of them attaining a large size, with 

 a dense and tangled undergrowth made up of a wide range of 

 species. Often the vegetation of the hammock rises up like a 

 wall on the border of the Pine-land, with little or no inter- 

 mingling of the characteristic species of the two floras. In the 

 main the hammock appears to follow or is in the neighbor- 

 hood of the water-courses, or in the vicinity of lakes, and the 

 soil, though still apparently made up almost entirely of white 

 sand, is far richer in plant-food than that of the barrens ; but 

 not infrequently in the midst of the rii h hanimock appear 

 small patches of Pine-land, called locally Pine-pockets, sharply 

 set off from the surrounding hammock, and possessing all the 

 characteristics of the wide expanses of Pine-I.iarrens, which 

 occupy too much of the surface of the region. However, 

 there are Pine-lands of better quality, where the trees grow to 

 a larger size, and the Palmetto becomes a less distinctive fea- 

 ture of the undergrowth. 



Still another division of the general flora is seen in the wet 

 swamps found on the borders of lakes or along the streams. 

 Here ihe appearance of the vegetation and the representative 

 species a re as markedly different from the two previous divisions 

 as tliese are from each other. The characteristic tree is the 

 Bald Cypress, in form not at all like the typical conifer, the gray 

 trimks quite unfurnished, and the deciduous portions of the 

 broad Hat lop now turned to a rich soft brown. In inundated 

 swamps there is always an abundant development of those 

 most remarkable root-growths, the knees, sometimes perhaps 

 a hundred pertaining to a single tree, rising in height from 

 one to five feet or more, and usuallv in the form of sharp 

 narrow cones, and often separated from each other and from 

 the parent tree by intervening spaces of v.'ater. 



The prevailing- color of vegetation everywhere at this sea- 

 son is a dull soft gray ; this would hardly be expected in a 

 country where so many evergreens abound like the Magnolias 

 and Live Oaks, to say nothing of the Palms. But vegetation is 

 for the most part now at rest, for here in this sunny clime they 

 have as distinctive a winter, although the thermometer may 

 not indicate it, as in more northern regions. The foliage of 

 the Live Oak and other broad-leaved evergreens is now ma- 

 ture, and has lost the brighter green of the growing season ; 

 while the soft gray long moss, draping almost everything in 

 wonderful abundance, of itself gives tone and color to the 

 landscape. 



While the northern visitor meets with numerous species of 

 marked interest, perhaps the Palms at the outset take the 

 highest rank. Of the eight unquestioned species found in the 

 state, only four occur in central Florida, and of these onlv two 

 are common, the Saw Palmetto and Cabfiage Palmetto. Small 

 plants of these two species, when seen at a distance, appear to 

 the unpracticed eye much alike; but the always strongly 

 curved midveins of the leaf-blade of the latter are never seen 

 in the former. The Cabbage Palmetto, as seen here in mature 

 and more perfect specimens, is really a stately and beautiful 

 tree, a wortliy representative of the noble family to which it 

 belongs. Its favorite place of growth is the banks of streams 

 or lakes if not too wet, sometimes forming groves exclusive 

 of other trees ; but it also occurs in the hammock scattered 

 here and there in greater or less abiuidance. 



In making excursions through the hanmiock one does not 

 overlook the fact that many northern species here lind a home. 

 Sabal Palmetto and Liriodendron tulipifera appear as friendly 



neighbors, the latter often reaching fine proportions, with 

 trunks three feet in diameter. Magnolia grandiflora and Acer 

 rubrum are within hailing distance, the ripened foliage of 

 the latter still clinging to the branches, but the faded color 

 sviggesting an ill attempt at reproducing the scarlet hues which 

 helped to make the woodlands of the north brilliant three 

 months ago. On tree-trunks, quite strangers to its northern 

 kindred, the Virginia Creeper finds support. The plants look 

 dwarfed, as though not quite at home, but the still unfallen 

 leaves, unlike those of the Maple, have taken on a brilliant 

 color. Altogether, a considerable number of northern plants 

 are seen, but southern species, as Magnolias and Palms, pre- 

 dominate, and give to the woodlands, as a whole, a distinctive 

 sub-tropical aspect. 



At Christmas-time one finds in an hour's ramble along the 

 highwavs and on the borders of woods perhaps a dozen species 

 in bloom. In this enumeration the straggling and belated flow- 

 ers of several Asters and Golden-rods, now long past their 

 prime, are not included. With especial interest one comes 

 upon the Common Blue Violet, now fully in bloom, and growing 

 in considerable abundance in damp places ; but the plants are 

 less vigorous and the flowers smaller and paler than at the 

 north. On the sand)' margins of Lake Charm we find the odd 

 litfle Utiicularia subulata, the single bright yellow flower in 

 size quite out of proportion to the slender leafless stem. On 

 comparatively dry soil are pretty clumps of Pinguicula pumila, 

 the light purple or almost white flowers at first sight appear- 

 ing more like Primulas than Butterworts. Gelsemium sem- 

 pervirens, abundant everywhere on the margin of moist woods, 

 is just coming into bloom, while near a group of Palmettos 

 some broad white cymes of the Common Elder are fully ex- 

 panded. Close down on the sand, in little patches, are the 

 tinv creeping stems of Oldenlandia rotundifolia, the bright 

 white flowers of relative large size. It is very pretty, but has 

 little resemblance to its near relative, the Bluets of the north. 

 These species, and perhaps a few others now in bloom, are 

 here the real harbingers of spring. 



But there are still to be seen interesting remnants of the 

 autumnal flora. In this category ought, probably, to be placed 

 the beautiful Coreopsis aurea ; but whether of late autumn or 

 early spring, it just now enlivens everywhere the sides of 

 ditches and the borders of swamps with its warm golden color. 

 Now almost out of bloom and coming into fruit is theshrubbv 

 composite, Baccharis glomeruliflora ; it is six or eight feet in 

 height, with numerous heads of inconspicuous flowers, but 

 the upper branches are more showy with the dense tufts of 

 white pappus, in beautiful contrast with the coriaceous ever- 

 green leaves. This, however, is true onlv of the female plants, 

 the species being strictly dioecious, and the pappus of the male 

 plants but little developed. 



Altogether, with expectations formed by long familiarity with 

 glowing accounts of Florida as a region of perpetual bloom, 

 one mavfind the vegetation at midwinter a little disappointing 

 as to the abundance of flowers, but he cannot regard it, on 

 the whole, as otherwise than sufficiently entertaining and in- 

 structive. 



Ithaca, N. Y. A. A'. Prenttss. 



New or Little-known Plants. 

 Smilax Pseudo-China. 



THE great genus Smila,x, represented in the tropics, and 

 in the north temperate regions of the two hemispheres 

 by some two hundred species, extends north in eastern 

 America to beyond the northern limits of the United States. 

 The species are herbaceous, or are stout woody climbers, and 

 the genus is principally valuable, economically, for China- 

 root, a drug once much more esteemed than it is at pres- 

 ent, derived from the root of Smilax China, a thorny 

 climber of eastern India, China and Japan, and for sarsa- 

 parilla, the root of various species found in different countries 

 of tropical America. Botanists ha\'e distinguished fourteen or 

 fifteen species in the United States, but these are still very im- 

 perfectly known, and in the flora of the eastern states there 

 is no group of plants of whose life-historj' there is more to 

 be learned. But as the different species are scattered over 

 a wide extent of country they will never, probahl3% be thor- 

 oughly understood until all the forms are gathered together 

 and cultivated side by side — a difficult undertaking, as 

 many of the species are peculiar to the extreme southern 

 states, and are not hardy in that part of the country where 

 experimental gardens are usually found. The difficulty of 



