PRELIMINARY REPORT ON PEAT. 
327 
Isnardia natans (Ell.) Small.? 
Abundant in saw-grass marshes at the south end of Lake Eustis. Also 
occurs in sloughs and ’gator-holes in the southern part of the Everglades. 
North Carolina to Mexico, in the coastal plain. 
RHIZOPHORACEAE. Mangrove Family. 
Rhizophora Mangle L. (Red) Mangrove. (Plate 18.) 
A very characteristic small tree of tropical coasts, one of the very few in the 
United States which will grow right in salt water. Said to have formerly 
extended as far north as New Smyrna and Cedar Keys, but I have not seen it 
even as far north as Tampa. (It has probably been killed back by some of the 
severe freezes of recent years.) In the coast prairie of Dade County, where 
salt water rarely comes, shrubby specimens about three feet high make a rather 
dense growth over thousands of acres. On the shores of Biscayne Bay and on 
some of the Keys it becomes a medium-sized tree, and seems to form consid¬ 
erable peat. In the vicinity of the Ten Thousand Islands of Monroe County it 
grows 60 feet high, according to Sanford (Fla. Geol. Surv., 2nd Ann. Rep.* 
p. 194)- > 
Widely distributed on the coasts of tropical America. 
COMBRETACEAE. 
Laguncularia racemosa Gaert. White Mangrove or Buttonwood. 
Common near salt water in South Florida, with much the same range and 
habitat as Rhizophora , but less abundant than the other, except toward its 
northern limit. 
Coasts of tropical America and western Africa. 
Conocarpus erectus Jacq. Buttonwood. (Plate 18.2.) 
With the preceding, and often growing farther from salt water, as along the 
Miami River and at the south end of the Everglades and the inland edge of the 
coast prairie. Grows on peat in mangrove swamps near Lemon City and. 
elsewhere. 
Coasts of tropical America and western Africa. 
LYTHRACEAE. Loosestrife Family. 
Decodon verticillatus (L.) Ell. 
In swamps in Escambia and Walton Counties, in marshy prairies in Mad¬ 
ison and Polk Counties, in a cypress swamp near Leesburg, and among the 
water-hyacinths in the Wlithlacoochee River near Istachatta; usually on a few 
feet of peat. Rather rare in Florida. 
Massachusetts to Minnesota, Florida and Louisiana, mostly in the glaciated 
region and coastal plain. 
