274 
FLORIDA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY—THIRD ANNUAL REPORT. 
FILLED LAKES, ETC. 
PEAT PRAIRIES. 
(plate 27.1) 
Whenever a small lake is completely filled with peat it becomes 
a prairie; and such prairies when dry and firm enough to support a 
dense growth of broom-sedge do not look very different from old 
fields, especially in winter and early spring when the water is low 
and most of the herbage is dead. At such times one can walk 
across them without much trouble, and it would be hard for a per¬ 
son going into one of these places for the first time to realize that 
he might be standing on 15 or 20 feet of exceptionally pure peat. 
The smallest peat prairies are often among the deepest, for they are 
commonly situated among rather steep hills, whose slopes continue 
without much change some distance below the surface of the peat. 
Besides the smaller lakes there are some, especially in Putnam and 
Polk Counties, which are half a mile or more in diameter and only 
about half filled with peat, which has essentially the same vegetation 
on it as that in the completely filled lakes. The difference between 
the peat prairies bordering the medium-sized lakes of Putnam and 
Polk Counties and the saw-grass marshes among the large lakes 
in the central part of the lake region (already described) is prob¬ 
ably correlated with the fact that the smaller lakes are strictly non • 
calcareous, and not connected with streams; while wherever saw- 
grass grows there seems to be usually a pretty good chance of find¬ 
ing limestone not very far below it. 
The following plants have been found in non-calcareous peat 
prairies in various counties of the lake region. 
SMALL TREES 
Magnolia glauca (bay) 
Persea pubescens (red bay) 
Ilex Cassine (swamp holly) 
Gardonia Lasianthus (bay) 
SHRUBS AND VINES 
Smilax laurifolia (bamboo vine) 
Vitis rotundifolia (muscadine) 
Hypericum fasciculatum 
Ilex glabra (gallberry) 
Smilax sp. 
Pier is nitida 
Cholisma ligistrina 
Cephalanthus occidentalis (button 
bush) 
Vaccinium sp. (huckleberry) 
