TRANSACTIONS OF WAGNER 
VEGETATION OF SOUTH FLORIDA 
58 
and owing to the honeycombed character of the rock, which is in some 
places full of larger and smaller pot holes. 
The limestone country is one of little relief. The maximum elevation 
of the ledges south of Miami may be ten meters (30 feet) above sea level, 
but the rise is so gradual as to be almost imperceptible. The maximum 
elevation on Long Key in the Everglades, and at New River, is about two 
and a half meters (eight feet). 
West of the Bahia Honda Passage and comprising an extreme western 
series of islands (see previous classification of keys) are a number of keys 
characterized by a limestone rock known to the Florida geologists as Key 
West oölite, which is a soft, white, or light-colored, fossiliferous oölitic 
limestone, less sandy than the Miami oólite. Such keys as Big Pine, 
Little Pine, Cudjoe and Key West belong to the western series of keys, 
where the odlitic limestone prevails. The Miami and Key West oólites 
differ so slightly that they may be assumed to have had a common origin. A 
study of the vegetation found on these oólitic limestones bears out their 
common character and I, therefore, propose for oölite of common origin, 
and perhaps age, the name Miami-Key West oólite. Outcrops of the Miami- 
Key West oölite are not known north of Delray, nor anywhere on the west 
coast. Exposures of it occur in bluffs near Miami and in low ridges a few 
miles west of that town. However, much of the Miami-Key West oölite 
is flat-topped, and this is true also of the smooth exposures in the keys west 
of Bahia Honda. From the evidence of plant distribution, the writer be- 
lieves that the outcrops of Miami-Key West oölite were elevated sooner 
above the surface than the Key Largo limestone, which forms the material 
out of which the connecting chain of keys is composed, for it has been 
recognized that the elevated reef that forms the backbone of the main 
series of islands from Bahia Honda to Soldier Key consists of coralline 
material. 
The Key Largo limestone represents the only known fossil coral reef 
in southern Florida, and lithologically, it is differentiated sharply from any 
of the other limestone of the mainland and keys. In all probability, it was 
built up from a depth of 30 km. (roo feet). The Key Largo limestone may 
be in part contemporaneous with the Miami-Key West oölite which is believed 
to represent shallow water deposits formed behind the coral reef and finally 
extended over it, for in places the Miami-Key West oólite rests on the Key 
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