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FREE INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE 
VEGETATION OF SOUTH FLORIDA 
tance is marked by mile posts erected along the banks of the canal, the 
exact location of the different plant associations is thus made possible. 
L. O. painted on each of the sign boards refers to Lake Okeechobee; Ft. L., 
to Ft. Lauderdale. The birds and other animals noted are given for the general 
interest attached to such observations. Extensive notes were also made on 
the map of the Everglade drainage district of Florida issued by the trustees 
of the internal improvement fund, Nov., тотт. 
Phytogeographic Section Across the Everglades.—The Lake Okeechobee 
entrance to the North New River Canal is 98 kilometers (61 miles) from Ft. 
Lauderdale. The first 5 to 6 kilometers (3 or 4 miles) of the canal is cut 
through the custard-apple forest with its trees loaded with epiphytes. The 
material dredged from the canal, and which forms its banks, has since the canal 
was dug been covered with various weeds, some of which we have noted on a 
previous page. The weeds are twined with dense masses of the moon-flower, 
Calonyction (Ipomoea) aculeatum (L.) House, while in the canal the writer 
noted Sagittaria lancifolia L., some water-hyacinths, Piaropus crassipes (Mart.) 
Britton, and cat-tails, Typha. The water-turkey was noted, which can swim 
almost wholly submerged, and the great blue-heron flew out of the saw-grass. 
After passing the custard-apple formation, previously described, we find that 
it is fronted on the south by a willow strip which runs out into the Everglades. 
Before us we see the illimitable stretches of the saw-grass. : 
L. О. 6 Miles, L. O. 7 Miles-L. O. 12 Miles.—We passed unbroken saw- 
grass with no hammocks. In June the Everglades in color resemble a large 
field of grain just turning from its green, unripe condition to the brownish- 
yellow ripe condition. Gifford compares the Everglades to a vast pancake 
sliced in the middle by the canal.* Before us, as far as the eye can reach, is a 
level prairie-like expanse of saw-grass. The red-wing blackbird was seen and 
we startled a few buzzards feeding on alligator carcasses from which the hides 
had been removed by hunters. 
L. О. 13 Miles.—The unbroken saw-grass continues. A transverse ditch 
has been dug at every mile post through the dredged material, so as to drain 
the water from the Glades into the canal. 
L. O. 14-L. O. 19 Miles.—The landscape and the vegetation remain 
unchanged. 
* Gifford, John: The Everglade Magazine, Oct., 1912. 
