Cedar Keys 
develops palmlike from terminal buds. The 
stout leaves are very rigid, sharp-pointed and 
bayonet-like. By one of these leaves a man 
might be as seriously stabbed as by an army 
bayonet, and woe to the luckless wanderer who 
dares to urge his way through these armed 
gardens after dark. Vegetable cats of many 
species will rob him of his clothes and claw his 
flesh, while dwarf palmettos will saw his bones, 
and the bayonets will glide to his joints and 
marrow without the smallest consideration for 
Lord Man. 
The climate of these precious’ islets is sim- 
ply warm summer and warmer summer, corre- 
sponding in time with winter and summer in the 
North. The weather goes smoothly over the 
points of union betwixt the twin summers. Few 
of the storms are very loud or variable. The 
average temperature during the day, in De- 
cember, was about sixty-five degrees in the 
shade, but on one day a little damp snow fell. 
Cedar Key is two and one half or three miles 
in diameter and its highest point is forty-four 
[133] — 
