FREE INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE 
VEGETATION OF SOUTH FLORIDA 
67 
that when the water hyacinth floats out to sea the salt water soon shrivels its 
leaves and kills it. 
The bay beach was littered with fragments of shells, cases of sea urchins, 
etc. A reddish fiddler-crab by the tens of thousands scuttled over the beach 
with a rustling noise, which was intensified by the crabs knocking against 
the shell fragments and rattling them. After the phenomenal rains of 
June, 1912, the river water, charged with vegetal matter and mud, was of 
a dark chocolate color, even as far out as Sanibel Island, where it met the 
light greenish water of the Gulf in a sharp line of separation. The growing vege- 
tation of the bay beach consisted on June то, 1912, of the prostrate stems of 
Canavalia lineata (Thunb.) DC. in flower, and Ipomoea pes-caprae (L.) 
Sweet, in flower, both plants found in the new growth of the seaside oats, 
Uniola paniculata, associated with another grass, Distichlis spicata (L.) 
Greene. The herbaceous plants include Cyperus ottonis Boeckl., Atriplex 
cristata H. B. K. Dondia linearis (Ell.) Millsp., Sesuvium portulacastrum L. 
(a succulent), growing in thick mats, Chamaesyce buxifolia (Lam.) Small, 
Phyla nodiflora (L.) Greene, Melanthera deltoidea Michx., Bidens leu- 
cantha (L.) Willd. The presence of the succulent-stemmed Cactaceæ in 
Opuntia Dillenii Haw., Acanthocereus pentagonus (L.) Britt. & Rose and the 
leathery or succulent-leaved Agave decipiens Baker, Yucca aloifolia L. 
heightens the impression of a Litorideserta, or littoral desert.* The shrubs 
or low trees of the upper bay beach include Sabal palmetto (Walt.) R. & S., 
Coccolobis uvifera (L.) Jacq., Croton punctatus Jacq., Sophora tomentosa 
L., Conocarpus erectus L., Borrichia frutescens (L.) DC. All of these plants, 
herbs and shrubs alike, merge with the thicket vegetation to be described in 
detail in another section. 
The beach at Punta Rassa across San Carlos Bay has a somewhat 
poorer flora. Here the most conspicuous species of the beach proper are 
Uniola paniculata, Canavalia lineata (Thunb.) DC., Ipomoea pes-caprae (L.) 
Sweet, Heliotropium polyphyllum Lehm., and Bradburya virginiana (L.) 
Kuntze. The shrubs that grow on the beach, or rather outer edge of the 
thicket, where they encroach upon the beach are seaside-grape, Coccolobis 
uvifera (L.) Jacq., and cocoa-plum, Chrysobalanus icaco L. This beach is 
rather exposed to the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico and to tidal currents 
* Brockmann, Jerosch H., and Rúbel, E.: “Die Einteilung der Pflanzengesellschaften nach 
Okologisch-Physiognomischen Gesichtspunkten,” 1912, 56. 
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