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EREE INSTI PUTE ORSSCLENGE m 
VEGETATION OF SOUTH FLORIDA 177 
Lake Okeechobee. Some attempts have been made to cultivate some of them, 
but owing to the lack of drainage the crops have been destroyed during the 
wet season and most of the projects undertaken have been abandoned. 
The largest typic prairie is one situated north of the Caloosahatchee River, 
west of the Everglades along the west shore of Lake Okeechobee and west of 
Peace Creek. It is bisected in an east and west direction by Fisheating Creek. 
The prairie itself touches the Caloosahatchee River near Citrus Center, which 
is situated in its midst, and where the writer has seen it (Plate VII, Fig. 1). 
Physiognomically, it resembles a prairie-grass formation, where the 
principal species are sod formers, so that the typic appearance of such prairies 
is an extended surface covered with turf. The prairie surface, however, is 
marked in some places, as near Citrus Center, by palmetto hammocks usually 
of circumscribed area (Plate VII, Fig. 1). Where this prairie touches on the 
Everglades, it blends insensibly with saw-grass vegetation, as is seen on ap- 
proaching Lake Hicpochee. Where the pine woods touch this prairie, the pine 
trees in scattered phalanx advance on to the prairie surface, which may be 
compared then to a pine savanna. Another large prairie occupies the country 
along the western edge of the Everglades and the Okaloacoochee Slough. 
Brown's Store is situated in the southern part of this semicircular prairie. 
Along the east coast of Florida, below Miami, the pineland is characterized 
by narrow prairies, the names of which from north to south are Peter Prairie, 
Cauldwell Prairie, Gosmann Prairie, Sterritt Prairie (Map and Text Figure 1), 
Long Prairie and Big Hammock Prairie. The long direction of these prairies 
is approximately at right angles to the eastern edge of the Everglades and the 
Atlantic coast. They represent probably ancient drainage, or spillways, of 
the Everglades, and their soil is wet, saturated, or submerged with water by 
torrential rains. Physiognomically, such prairies (Plate X, Fig. 2) resemble 
the Everglades, and Small* considers them identical with the vast saw-grass 
marsh to the west, but on account of their geographic location and for other 
points of difference, I have included them with the prairies. In the first place, 
the soil of these transverse prairies is a white, calcareous marl, and if it consists 
largely of shells, it is known as shell marl, while that of the Upper Everglades 
is a black muck rich in vegetal matter. Another difference is that through 
* Small believes these distinctions do not exist. Ie points out that the same plants and the 
same soil are common to the prairies and to the distant parts of the Everglades, and that with the 
muck soil of the Everglades, there are areas of sand and of marl too. My authority for the above 
distinctions was J. C. Baile of Miami, an old settler, who had cultivated the soils under discussion. 
