LIFE IN FLORIDA. 215 



and trees in the greatest profusion, filling the air with 

 its delicious fragrance. 



A gigantic cypress (Taxodium distichum, Eich.), an 

 old dying monarch of the forest, whose trunk measures 

 thirty feet in circumference, is clothed from base to the 

 towei-ing branches above with the large shining emer- 

 ald-green leaves of a lovely vine {Decumaria barbara, 

 L.). It clings close to the trunk, throwing out little 

 rootlets, which grasp the bark so closely that the vine 

 seems a part of the tree. It is just coming into flow- 

 er; the flower-stems are six- to eight inches in length, 

 stand straight out from the tree, and are scattered 

 thickly along the entire length of the trunk. Each 

 stem bears three or four pairs of large leaves, and is 

 terminated by a cyme of numerous fragrant white 

 blossoms. 



Several members of the heath family are also in 

 flower, the most conspicuous of them being the swamp- 

 honeysuckle (Azalea nudiflora, L.). Some of these 

 shrubs bear large clusters of pure white flowers, while 

 others have deep rose -pink blossoms. This azalea is 

 here so ambitious to show itself foremost among the 

 flowering shrubs that it fairly forfeits the title of 

 nudiflora, the blossoms appearing amid the old setting 

 of leaves. 



But my delight culminated in finding a beautiful 

 amaryllis lily growing amid the dense thicket in the 

 soft mucky soil along the banks of the stream. The 

 leaf is much broader and longer than the old form 



