ALONG THE MANGROVE SHORE 255 



heavy frost of 1886 it was totally destroyed near 

 its northern limit on the west coast, and many 

 trees were badly injured as far south as Cape 

 Sable. I visited this coast in 1892, sailing along 

 it from Terraceia Island in Tampa Bay to the 

 lower end of Sarasota Bay, a distance of more than 

 twenty-five miles, and everjrwhere the mangroves 

 were dead and decaying, — a most melancholy 

 sight. Here and there at long intervals the club- 

 shaped seedlings had drifted in from more favored 

 regions and were becoming established, these be- 

 ing the only living mangroves I saw. 



Ordinarily the American mangrove is a large 

 shrub or perhaps a small low-headed tree standing 

 on arched roots, and is often without any regular 

 trunk. In certain areas, notably the great swamp 

 east of Florida city, it is only a low shrub which 

 rarely reaches a height of three feet; except in 

 size it has the usual habit. Among the Ten 

 Thousand Islands, in places along the south coast 

 of the mainland, and about the shores of upper 

 Biscayne Bay, it becomes a tall and imposing tree. 

 In the islands the trunks are closely huddled 

 together; they seldom attain a foot in diameter 

 and have but few brace roots, or even none at all. 



