LIFE IN FLORIDA. 213 



How far it extends remains to be seen. I have 

 traced it about forty miles along the St. John's. It 

 grows all about Jacksonville — thirty -five miles below 

 us — within a few yards of the Grand National Hotel, 

 and how it has so long escaped the botanist is a mys- 

 tery. But' the plants around Jacksonville are not so 

 beautiful and striking in appearance as those near home, 

 probably owing to the rough treatment to which they 

 must naturally be subjected. 



A short distance from home is a deep, narrow stream, 

 known as Governor's Creek, which takes its rise in the 

 low marshy grounds, and pursues its course amid a wild 

 and tangled forest, increasing in size as it approaches 

 the St. John's, in whose murky water it is lost. Alone 

 on this stream, or with a single oarsman, and no sound 

 save the plash of the oar, one's thoughts revert to pri- 

 meval times. But the boats with their gay and fash- 

 ionable occupants have almost spoiled the pristine look. 



At the mouth of this creek we also find our lily — 

 Nymphcea flava — in abundance, but it is soon replaced 

 by the common yellow lily, or bonnets (Nuphar ad- 

 vena, Ait.), which here assume gigantic proportions. 

 The leaves measure from eighteen to twenty inches 

 across, and cover the water on either side of the deep 

 channel for the distance of a mile or more. The leaves 

 and flowers reach the surface of the water in some 

 places from a depth of ten feet. A bouquet of these, 

 with ten feet of flower-scape and leaf-stalk, would do 

 to present to Swift's Brobdingnagian heroine ! 



