| FREE INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE 
12 
VEGETATION OF SOUTH FLORIDA 3 
The herbaceous layer of the hammocks consists of such plants as a fern, 
| Asplenium biscayanum (D. С. Eaton) A. A. Eaton, which grows on rocks 
about the margins of sink holes. The small cane, Panicum latifolium L., is 
common in Brickell Hammock, and two other grasses are conspicuous, viz., 
Andropogon tenuispatheus Nash (5-15 dm. tall) and Paspalum ciliatifolium 
Michx. Three sedges have been collected as part of the undergrowth, such as 
an acaulescent one, Abilgaardia monostachya (L.) Vahl, Cyperus brunneus 
Sw. and Scleria lithosperma (L.) Sw. Three euphorbiaceous plants are 
found in Brickell Hammock, as far as the collections of the writer go: Cham- 
aesyce conferta Small, C. gemella (Lag.) Small and C. hirta (L.) Millsp., to- 
gether with Rivina humilis L., 3-7 dm. tall, and Piriqueta tomentosa 
H. B. K. Finally, Afzelia pectinata (Pursh.) Kuntze (2-5 dm. tall), 
Wedelia trilobata (L.) A. Hitchc. with creeping stems and branches and 
Bidens leucantha (L.) Willd. naturalized from tropic America are elements 
of the third, or herbaceous, layer of the forest. The herbaceous vegetation 
| cuts no important figure in Brickell Hammock. The plants that the 
writer collected there are enumerated above. They do not form pure 
associations, but are scattered beneath the shrubs and trees, here a species, 
and there a species, so that with other peculiarities the broad-leaved 
forests, or hammock vegetation, cannot be compared with the forests of tem- 
perate regions. The subsidiary species are perched, as epiphytes, suspended in 
air on the taller evergreen forest trees, while in temperate regions with periodic 
leaf-fall, the herbs are on the ground and flower usually before the leaves have 
developed fully. Two lianes are present in the sub-tropic forest which are 
found also in the forests of broad-leaved trees in Pennsylvania, and elsewhere, 
viz., the Virginia-creeper, Ampelopsis (Parthenocissus) quinquefolia (L.) 
Planch, which extends to the Florida keys, Bermuda, Bahamas and Cuba, and 
the poison-ivy, Rhus (Toxicodendron) radicans (L.) Kuntze, which extends 
likewise to the Florida keys, Bermuda and Bahamas, but apparently is absent 
Pa 
in Cuba. With these few exceptions, the species are entirely different in the two 
forest regions. 
At Immokalee, southwest of the Everglades, is a hammock covered with 
hardwood trees, the surface of which is 11.5 meters (38 feet) above sea level 
and the highest point between Ft. Myers and Brown's Store. Several other 
hammocks in the Big Cypress wilderness have received local notice. One of 
them is Deep Lake Hammock, reached by a trail running due south from 
