ALONG THE MANGROVE SHORE 263 



bamboo stems, shingles, parts of vegetable crates, 

 cigar stumps, a bit of hose, dead land crabs and 

 fishes, the remains of a bird, a piece of rope, a few 

 marine shells, onions, a royal palm and a coconut 

 petiole, and many corks and bottles — ^alas! for a 

 dry State too! 



The mangroves must have some especial attrac- 

 tion for bottles judging from their abundance 

 among their roots. Beer and wine bottles, whisky 

 flasks of all shapes and sizes, bottles with wide 

 or narrow niecks, long bottles, squat bottles, — their 

 number is legion. An innocent stranger would 

 naturally conclude that the inhabitants of this 

 region must be a set of besotted drvmkards, but 

 the bottle crop must be laid instead to the passing 

 steamers. 



Associated with the mangroves on the firmer 

 land is another littoral tree (Laguncularia) com- 

 monly called ' ' white mangrove. ' ' Along Biscayne 

 Bay it sometimes attains a height of sixty feet, 

 but is oftener a large shrub. While not so aggres- 

 sive a pioneer as the mangrove it is nevertheless an 

 active land builder. It has a device of its own for 

 catching trash and for aeration that is very effec- 

 tive. If one will examine the mud under one of 



