9 262 FLORIDA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY—THIRD ANNUAL REPORT. 
and vary so much in appearance, that it is hardly worth while to 
attempt any general statements about their vegetation, except that 
grasses and other plants with very narrow leaves always make up 
the bulk of the vegetation where it is undisturbed. Just why these 
places are treeless is one of the numerous unsolved problems of 
Florida geography. 
In the northern part of the state shallow depressions in the pine 
woods almost invariably contain a rather dense growth of trees, as 
in the cypress, gum, and mayhaw ponds, or more bushes than trees, 
in which case they are known as bays. 
CYPRESS PONDS. 
(plate 23.1) 
Cypress ponds are very abundant in the West Florida limestone 
region and East Florida flatwoods, and frequent in the northern 
parts of the Gulf hammock region and South Florida flatwoods, 
but rare in the lake region and south of latitude 28°. They are 
of various sizes and shapes, but usually approximately circular or 
slightly elliptical and from one to a hundred acres in extent. In 
wet weather the water in them< may be as much as three feet deep in 
the middle, while in late spring they are usually dry or nearly so, 
and it is not an uncommon occurrence for fire to burn through them 
as it does through the surrounding pine forests. This being the case 
they are of no importance as sources of peat, but they are of con¬ 
siderable scientific interest as representing a distinct and not very 
widely distributed (only from South Carolina to Mississippi) type 
of vegetation. 
I have not closely examined any of the cypress ponds of the Gulf 
hammock region except in winter, but they do not seem to differ 
much from those in other parts of the state. The following 
list is made up from notes taken in Jackson, Columbia, Baker, Du¬ 
val, Clay, Bradford, Alachua, Putnam, St. John’s, Orange, Osceola 
and Pasco Counties. 
trees 
Tax odium imbricarium (pond cy- Nyssa bi flc-ra (black gum) 
press) Gordonia Lasianthus (bay) 
Pinus Elliottii (slash pine) Magnolia glauca (bay) 
SMALL TREES OR LARGE SHRUBS 
Ilex myrtifolia (yupon) 
Nyssa Ogeche (tupelo gum) 
Myrica cerifera (myrtle) 
Ilex Cassine (swamp holly) 
Cy villa vac emi flora (tyty) 
