THE CAPE SABLE REGION OF FLORIDA 



19 



ant. It is a few inches above high-water and about large 

 enough for pitching a small tent. Citrus trees were found 

 naturalized on some of these small middens. 



The river flows through prairie, hammock, and man- 

 grove-swamps. Near its source the channel narrows 

 down to a stream only a few feet wide and is almost hid- 

 den by the tall cat-tails. The source is a basin-like pond, 

 which is, at low water, only about two rods wide. 



Here we left our boats and made our way by an Indian 

 trail across the prairie tO' the Tommy " Cypress," an 

 area so called from an Indian named Tommy who once 

 lived in the region. The "cypress " consists of areas of 

 pine, palmetto, and cypress, and of hammock. We passed 

 through interesting phytogeographic areas, one after an- 

 other, until we entered a very large and dense hammock, 

 where we were surprised to encounter many of the shrubs 

 and trees common in the more northern portion of the 

 Florida peninsula. We were, therefore, in a floral region 

 wholly different from that we had left in the morning. 

 At this point our party separated into two ; the one fol- 

 lowed the length of the hammock in one direction and 

 the other went through prairie, pineland, and deep 

 cypress-swamps in the other direction and finally en- 

 countered an Indian camp in the pine-forest. The ham- 

 mock referred to lay in a slough. It was then dry, but 

 marks on the tree-trunks showed that the water often 

 stood about neck-deep. The largest and most plentiful 

 tree was the cypress, but other broad-leaved deciduous 

 trees were present, such as the ash (Fm.vi)ius) and maple 

 (Acer) . There were epiphytic orchids (Aiilica, Encyclia) 

 and epiphytic ferns, among which the tropical spleenwort 



