254 FLORIDA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY—THIRD ANNUAL REPORT. 
up the slopes as the swamp increases in depth by the accumulation 
of peat. About ioo feet in from; the edge of this swamp the peat 
was found to be ten feet deep, and of fair quality. (See analysis 
under locality 39.) The area of the swamp was not determined, 
but it covers a good many acres, and there are doubtless other places 
of the same kind in the same general region. 
GUM SWAMPS OF LEON COUNTY. 
(fig. 19) 
A few miles west and south of Tallahassee, just where the red 
hills merge into the lower and more sandy country of the Middle 
Florida hammock belt, there are some non-alluvial swamps of a 
somewhat different type from anything seen elsewhere. . Some 
people call them bays, probably on account of the numerous bushes 
in them, though the bushes are much less conspicuous than in typical 
bays, being here completely overshaded by the tall trees (which 
are mostly black gums). An interesting feature of these 
swamps is that nearly all the species of plants in them are found 
also in the great Dismal Swamp of Virginia and North Carolina. 
The reason for this is not obvious, as there is not much similarity in 
the climate of the two places, and still less in the nature of the sur¬ 
rounding country. The plants which have been identified in these 
swamps are about as follows: 
TREES 
Nyssa biflora (black gum) Nyssa uniflora (tupelo gum) 
Magnolia glauca ^(bay) Persea pubescens (red bay) 
Tax odium di/stichumf (cypress) 
SHRUBS AND VINES 
Pieris nitida Vaccinium virgatum? (blueberry) 
Itea Virginica Cholisma ligustrina 
Leucothoe racemosa Clethra alnifolia 
Smilax laurifolia (bamboo vine) Aronia arbutifolia 
Cyrilla racemiflora (tyty) (toward Cephalanthus o<-eidentalis (button 
edges) bush) 
Phoradendrcn flavescens (mistle- Pieris phillyreifolia 
toe) Rhus radicans (poison ivy) 
HERBS 
(Spanish Pciypodium polypodioides (a fern) 
(on trees) 
Lorinseria areolata (a fern) 
Boehmeria cylindrica 
Lemna sp. 
MOSSES, ETC. 
Pallavicinia Lyellii Leucobryum glaucum 
Tillandsia usneoides 
moss) 
Utricularia inflata, etc. 
Saururus cernuus , 
Triadenum petiolatum 
