TRANSACTIONS OF WAGNER 
u VEGETATION OF SOUTH FLORIDA 
Along the shore here is open and clean sand. The ridge of sand, or ancient 
dunes, is clothed with bald-cypress and palmetto and the growth is almost 
impenetrable in many places. According to Small,* we find the maple, Acer 
carolinianum Walt., holly, Ilex cassine L., pop-ash, Fraxinus caroliniana Mill., 
many shrubs and herbs associated with the cypress trees. The cypress swamp 
along the north and northeast shore of Lake Okeechobee ascends Taylor Creek 
and stretches along the eastern shore of the lake to T. P. 41 S., which is one sec- 
tion north of Pelican Bay and the outlet of the projected West Palm Beach 
Canal. Cypress swamps (see map) are found along the eastern border of the 
Everglades and the headwaters of the larger streams that flow eastward into 
the Atlantic. The largest cypress swamp in South Florida is known as the 
Big Cypress. It is west of the Everglades in the southwestern part of the 
peninsula. As the Everglades occupy part of the lake basin of an ancient Lake 
Okeechobee, the cypress, which is found on the shores of the present lake, is 
continued southward along the edge of the ancient lake, now the eastern and 
western borders of the Everglades. A large body of bald-cypress is found 
along the border of the Everglades, where the Loxahatchee Marsh meets the 
Glades. It continues some distance on both sides of the Loxahatchee Marsh, 
as it extends north to drain north into Jupiter River. From the Loxahatchee 
Marsh (see map), the cypress continues in bodies of greater or less size, often 
interrupted in their continuity, as far south as Cypress Creek. There the al- 
most continuous cypress border is broken and the cypress groves are only 
found about the headwaters of such rivers as the New and the Miami. 
The exact size of the Big Cypress Swamp (Indian name, Atseenahoofa) is 
not known with any exactitude. Sargent in his Tenth Census Report on the 
Forests of the United States (page 52) says that it is about 236 kilometers (85 
miles) long and 32 kilometers (20 miles) wide, and covers about 259,000 hec- 
tares (1000 square miles). These figures are probably too great, as the country 
which was formerly included in the Big Cypress has been proved by several 
surveys to be of a diversified character. The cypress swamps alternate with 
hammocks, prairies, swamp-land and pineland, so that there are not continuous 
bodies of cypress. However that may be, the Big Cypress represents the 
largest undisturbed cypress forest in the world. 
Branch Cypress Swamps.—These are cypress swamps that are found in 
* Small, John K.: Exploration in the Everglades and on the Florida Keys. Journ. N. Y, Bot. 
Gard., 15: 69-79, Apr., 1914. 
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