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FREE INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE 
I 
VEGETATION OF SOUTH FLORIDA 47 
the sense of the natives of South Florida are depressions permanently filled 
with water, or containing water only during the rainy season (wet-weather 
ponds), and both kinds either with an open surface of water, or with a luxu- 
riant growth of plants. They are designated by the plant which is most 
prominent (dominant in the ecologic sense). 
Saw-grass ponds, where the saw-grass is found growing from 6 dm. to 3.6 
meters (2 to 12 feet) high in either muck or marl. 
Pop-ash ponds with the pop-ash, Fraxinus caroliniana, as a low scrubby 
tree, seldom growing higher than 8.6 meters (25 feet) in clumps of 12 or more 
Stems arising from a single root. 
Flag ponds filled with the “fireflag,” an unidentifiable plant (perhaps 
Iris, or Orontium) from the description of a backwoodsman alone. 
Maiden-cane ponds, distinguished by the maiden-cane, Panicum hemi- 
tomon Schult., which grows out of a bottom of white sand to a height of 6—12 
decimeters. 
Cypress ponds where the cypress is prominent. Good drinking water may 
be had in these ponds during the dry season at a depth of a meter or less. 
In the limited time at the disposal of the writer, one of the larger flatwoods 
ponds about 40 ares in extent was visited near Samville. 'The water surface 
of the pond was broken by clumps of the switch-grass, Panicum virgatum L. 
The floating aquatic plants were represented by only one species, viz., Azolla 
caroliniana Willd., while the submerged aquatics comprised Naias flexilis 
(Willd.) Rost. & Sch. The wet muck soil of the pond margin was a sedgy 
strip, where various species of sedges and other herbaceous plants were found 
in association, as follows: Cyperus paniculatus Rottb., Fimbristylis autumnalis 
(L.) R. & S., Dichromena colorata (L.) A. S. Hitchc., Iris caroliniana S. Wats., 
Persicaria hydropiperoides (Michx.) Small (growing out in the shallow water), 
Hypericum mutilum L., Lythrum vulneraria Ait., Eryngium Baldwinii Spreng., 
Ptilimnium capillaceum (Michx.) Hollick, and Diodia virginiana L. The 
hammock vegetation surrounding this pond near Samville has been described 
Under that head and need not be considered here. A comparative study of the 
Pond vegetation of South Florida would yield a rich harvest of plants and would 
be a profitable study for some ecologically inclined botanist. Incidentally, 
while overhauling the South Florida plants in the Herbarium of the New York 
Botanical Garden, the following plants were listed: 
