24 FLORIDA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY-NINTH ANNUAL REPORT. 
Corkwood is a shrub or small tree of muddy shores now found 
along the Gulf coast from west Florida to Texas. It is not found 
at the present time in peninsular Florida. 
ORDER FAGALES. 
FAMILY FAGACEAE. 
! 
GENUS QUERCUS LINN. 
QUERCUS VIRGINIANA MILL. LIVE OAK. 
This species is represented in the Vero deposits by characteristic 
elongated acorns and turbinate cupules. Some of the leaf frag¬ 
ments suggest the leaves of this species, but these latter are not cer¬ 
tainly identified. Some of the cupules are suggestive of the closely 
allied Quercus geminata Small. 
The live oak is one of the most abundant trees in the Pleistocene 
deposits of our southern states, and its ancestors are already well 
defined in the Pliocene of this region. It has been recorded from 
the early Pleistocene of Kentucky and Alabama and from the late 
Pleistocene of Alabama. 
In the existing flora it ranges from Virginia to northeastern 
Mexico and does not forsake the region of the coast except in the 
Rio Grande valley. It occurs in hammocks nearly throughout 
Florida, and is not uncommon along the Indian River at Vero. 
QUERCUS LAURIFOLIA MICHX. WATER OAK. 
This species, represented by both leaves, acorns and cupiiles, is 
the most abundant fossil form at Vero. It is also the only plant 
represented from the bottom to the top of the section. 
The water oak is found at the present time near the coast from 
the southeastern corner of Virginia to Louisiana in sandy swamps 
and stream valleys. It is present along the Florida coasts, except 
those south of the Everglades. Sargent gives its southern range 
as Mosquito Inlet on the east coast and Cape Romano on the west 
coast, and while it extends farther south it is not nearly as abundant 
around Vero as it is ioo miles farther north, nor as abundant now 
as it apparently was at the time of the formation of the Vero 
deposits. 
