FREE INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE 
1 
VEGETATION OF SOUTH FLORIDA 55 
genus Annona, as to the means of distribution of the custard-apple, elicited the 
following information under date of Aug. 20, 1912: 
“Dear Sir:—I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your recent 
letter in which you ask suggestions as to how the swamp-apple, Annona glabra, 
is dispersed. This is a question which has perplexed me. The associations 
of this plant are with species of so-called mangroves of wide distribution. 
This species itself occurs on both sides of tropical America, the Galapagos 
islands and the west coast of Africa. It would be interesting to find out 
whether detached branches take root readily in the mud. The wood is so 
light, it is called corkwood, and the roots are used for corks and floats for nets. 
An experiment might be made by breaking off limbs or roots, and after soakin g 
them for a time in salt water plant them in mud. I cannot find that their 
fruits are any more buoyant than other Annonas. If it were birds that dis- 
tributed the seeds, why would not the more attractive species be just as widely 
dispersed? The seeds may possibly be borne by currents. They say that 
the fruit is eaten by aquatic lizards, or iguanas of the Bahamas. I wonder if 
they are carried from island to island." 
Large custard-apple trees are seen with enlarged bases, as if the influence 
of submergence in water induced their formation. 
EVERGLADE FORMATION 
The Everglades (Pah-hay [h]-o-kee=grassy water) is an immense grassy 
plain, covered in the wet season, June to November, with an average depth 
of 66 cm. (26 inches) of water, so that it is an extensive marsh stretching 
on all sides to the horizon line and relieved in some places by clumps of 
bushes, or low trees, and characterized by lagoons, channels, or slues of open 
water, or filled with various aquatic plants. Hence the meaning of the word 
Everglades—from ever, signifying all, or wholly grassy glade. They extend from 
the southern margin of Lake Okeechobee some 144.8 kilometers (go miles) to- 
ward Cape Sable, the southwestern extremity of Florida, and vary in width 
from 48 to 80 kilometers (30 to 5o miles). Two arms of saw-grass vegetation 
extend northward on both sides of Lake Okeechobee, so that the lake is almost 
completely surrounded, as is clearly shown in the accompanying phytogeo- 
graphic map. It consists of an area of 1,136,000 hectares (4,000 square 
miles, or about 2,560,000 acres)of marsh land. The normal surface of Lake 
