TRANSACTIONS OF WAGNER 
174 VEGETATION OF SOUTH FLORIDA 
attempted to define the difference and his classification of swamps is the best 
that has been made, yet he has not clearly emphasized how the two terms 
should be used to make them exact, as ecologic terms descriptive of vegetation. 
It seems to the writer that the word swamp should be used for an area covered 
by trees, or shrubs, and with a wet soil wholly or partially submerged with 
water during the greater part of the year. According to this definition, we 
have salt-water swamps (mangrove swamps) and freshwater swamps (tree 
swamp, bush swamp, cedar swamp and cypress swamp). The word marsh 
should be used for treeless, wet places in which sphagnum is not influential, 
hence we have salt marsh and freshwater marsh, exclusive of bogs in which 
sphagnum plays an important róle. 
Salt | Mangrove Swamp. 
Swamps (Wet Areas with Cedar Swamp. 
Trees, or Bushes). Fresh River Swamp. 
Helophytic Cypress Swamp, etc. 
Е ^ 
IG Salt | Salt Marsh. 
Marshes (Wet Treeless 
Areas). Everglades. 
Fresh | River. 
Sloughs, etc. 
With this distinction in view, the discussion which follows will deal with 
the marshes, other than the Everglades, which according to our definition 
above would be included in the category of marshes. 
River Marsh Formation.—Along the rivers in South Florida, outside of 
the river hammocks and growing along the shallow shores, we find a large 
number of helophytes. Some of them are rooted, others are true aquatic 
plants, and yet, both morphologic forms must be considered as belonging to 
the marsh formation, because they are inseparably connected with each other 
in the association. They contribute to the formation of the marsh muck and 
they are concerned with the various phases of the successions. 
Along the banks of the Miami River (Plate VI, Fig. 1) the marsh is well 
developed as a distinct formation. In some parts of the stream, the arrow- 
leaf, Sagittaria lancifolia L., forms pure associations (Sagittaria Association). 
The saw-grass, Cladium effusum (Sw.) Torr. (=Mariscus jamaicense (Crantz) 
Britton), in an embayment of the river shore, forms an exclusive growth (Cla- 
