276 
FLORIDA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY—THIRD ANNUAL REPORT. 
from several feet down, a condition which is not easily explained. 
One peat prairie of particular interest will be described in some 
detail under the head of exceptions. 
MARSHY PRAIRIES OF MIDDLE FLORIDA. 
(plate 27.2) 
In the northern part of the Middle Florida hammock belt, es¬ 
pecially in Madison County, and to a lesser extent in Leon, are a 
number of marshy prairies of various sizes and shapes, which bear 
a striking resemblance to those in Okefinokee Swamp, Georgia,* 
though they are surrounded by loamy hills, quite different from the 
flat sandy pine woods around Okefinokee. 
In the largest prairie of this kind that I have seen, which covers 
several hundred acres between Greenville and Madison, there is a 
dense border of pond cypress, heavily festooned with Spanish moss, 
and more or less undergrowth of vines and bushes. Next to the 
prairie the trees are usually considerably smaller than they are in 
the midst of the cypress belt, and they are bordered by a dense 
growth of a small weak shrub, Dccodon, and a fern, Anchistea . 
Small clumps of similar vegetation, sometimes with only one or 
two trees in them, are scattered over the surface of the prairie, as 
the accompanying illustration shows. 
The vegetation of these prairies and their bordering fringe of 
timber is about as follows: 
TREES 
Taxodium imbricarium (pond cy¬ 
press) (very abundant) 
Pieris nitida 
Smilax Waltcri 
Clethra alnifolia 
HERBS 
Tillandsia usneoidcs (Spanish 
moss) (on trees) 
Panicum hemitomon (maiden 
cane) 
Castalia odorata (white water-lily) 
Nyssa biflora (black gum) (rather 
scarce) 
Decodon verticillatus 
Leucothoc raccinosa 
Pieris phillyreifolia 
Pontederia cor data (wampee) 
Sagittaria lancifolia 
Hydrocctyle st> 
Eleocharis mterstincta 
Nymphaea orbiculata (bonnets) 
Sphagnum sp. 
MOSSES 
*See Popular Science Monthly 74: 604, 609. 1909. 
