THE FERN BULLETIN 



39 



corners and pot holes. We broke our buggy and tore 

 the shoes from our newly shod horses and could only 

 travel by tying up their feet in gunny sacks, which they 

 w ould cut through in a quarter of an hour. 



In a hammock at about the last point of civilization 

 we found a new Asplenium, a beauty with hard, glossy 

 fronds and a new Polypodium, which does not agree 

 with angustifolium } pectination perhaps. We stop- 

 ped at Camp Jackson, on the border of the Everglades 

 the second night. Leaving the team and driver, we 

 pushed on afoot the next morning, wading the glades, 

 through the saw grass and muddy water which gradu- 

 ally became knee deep. Finally we reached the chan- 

 nel, a clear, deep looking stream, thirty or forty rods 

 wide. 



Eaton waded in, and when about waist deep, stepped 

 on a fourteen foot alligator. The gator got up and 

 apologized and offered his seat. Eaton sat down, then 

 Eaton arose and came back looking very white and un- 

 til the trip was at an end, was trying to explain why he 

 came back. We then went up higher and crossed where 

 the stream was shallow. Before us lay Paradise Keys, 

 the most lovely bit of tropical scenery I have ever be- 

 held. It might have covered a hundred acres — a low 

 rounded dome of giant trees, and rich tangled vegeta- 

 tion, punctuated here and there with magnificent royal 

 palms, singly or in groups, rising from 60 to 120 feet 

 in height, their beautiful plumy heads swaying low in 

 the morning breeze. 



We left our baggage, provisions and blankets under 

 a very lofty royal, and began to search the hammock. 

 A loud shout from Soar called us and we found on the 

 trees great numbers of Oncidium luridum var. with 

 leaves five inches wide and 2 l / 2 feet long, thick and lea- 



