178 IN LOWER FLORIDA WILDS 



protect the plant from destruction by fire. Of 

 course, the very young seedlings are in some dan- 

 ger before they can burrow into the earth but they 

 usually come up during the rainy season, when 

 that risk is very sHght. As a baseball friend put 

 it, "they beat it to first" before dry weather comes 

 on. This palm has been made a species separate 

 from the ordinary cabbage palmetto partly on 

 account of this peculiar manner of growth. It is 

 only a depauperate form of that tree with an 

 abnormal growth habit wholly the result of un- 

 favorable environment. 



As further evidence of this special adaptation to 

 fire, one may find in the edges of the hammocks, 

 where the danger from fire is greatly lessened, 

 plants with flattened, prostrate stems, and a Uttle 

 farther in, the same plants rise at various angles. 

 Still deeper in the hammocks I cannot separate 

 them from the ordinary cabbage palmettos. This 

 strange reversed growth is seen in a number of our 

 cultivated Sabals and in a few other palms, show- 

 ing that they also have had to defend themselves 

 from fire in their native prairies or savannahs. 

 The dwarf Sabal has larger seeds than the cabbage 

 palmetto, a fact also used as a character in separat- 



