252 
FLORIDA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY—THIRD ANNUAL REPORT. 
SWAMPS BORDERING ESCAMBIA BAY. 
The west side of Escambia Bay, in the county of the same name, 
from the mouth of the Escambia River for eight or ten miles south¬ 
ward, is bordered by bluffs of coarse pinkish sand, mottled clay, 
etc. (probably of Pliocene age), which are over 100 feet high in 
many places. For about half their length these bluffs rise almost 
from the water’s edge, in the manner of typical sea-cliffs, and are 
nearly bare of vegetation. In some places, however, especially 
where the line of bluffs is concave, the action of the waves and cur¬ 
rents has been such as to build barrier beaches and cuspate forelands 
a few hundred feet or yards out from the bluffs. Where this is 
the case the bluffs are usually covered with dense vegetation of the 
sandy hammock type, and the water seeping out from them has 
given rise to non-alluvial swamps between bluff and beach. 
On Sept. 20, 1910, I made a brief examination of such a swamp 
between Gaberonne and Bohemia, about six miles northeast of 
Pensacola. It is nearly a mile long, and crescent-shaped, the 
beach being slightly concave and the bluffs still more so. Its soil 
is designated as “Portsmouth sand” on the U. S. soil map of Es¬ 
cambia County, but it is really mostly peat, with a depth of at least 
four feet in some places. 
The following plants were observed here. 
TREES 
Pinus Elliottii (slash pine) Nyssa biflora (black gum) 
Magnolia glauca (bay) Acer rubrum (maple) 
SHRUBS AND VINE* 
Myrica cerifera (myrtle) 
Cyrilla racemiflcra (tyty) 
Smilax laurifolia (bamboo, vine) 
Vitis rotundifolia (muscadine) 
Decodon verticillatus 
Rhus V ernix (poison sumac) 
HERBS 
Panicum gibbum (a grass) 
Osmunda regalis (a fern) 
Jussiaea suffruticosa (in open places, 
introduced) 
Panicum verrucosum (a grass) 
Boehmeria cylindrica 
Bidens coronata 
Eupatorium serotinum (intro¬ 
duced?) 
Carex glaucescens 
Sagittaria latifolia (arrowhead) 
Triadenum Virginicum 
Cladium effusum (saw-grass) 
Scutellaria sp. 
