144 FLORIDA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY-SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT. 
Nearly all the woody plants are evergreen. Ericaceae are pretty 
well represented, constituting about 25% of the shrubbery. About 
half the herbs are Leguminosae, strange to say, but they form only 
a small fraction of the total vegetation, and most of those listed 
were observed in an area which had been burned a few years before. 
(The soil must be richer in mineral nutrients immediately after a 
fire than at any other time, for then the potash, etc., stored up in 
several years’ growth of leaves is returned to the soil in a very 
soluble form.) Grasses are wanting or nearly so, and the scrub 
furnishes practically no forage for cattle, or any other useful prod¬ 
uct. (The wood of the spruce pine is of very little value for lum¬ 
ber or fuel.) Consequently most of the scrub is likely to remain un¬ 
disturbed for many years to come, and to be visited by an increasing 
number of scientists and nature-lovers, as other types of vegetation 
are gradually despoiled. 
Three or four of the plants here listed are confined to Florida, 
and most of the others do not extend very far outside of the state 
(the pine only a few miles into Alabama). Very few of them reach 
the tropics. Similar vegetation is common in the lake region (es¬ 
pecially in eastern Marion County), and on the old stationary dunes 
which border the east coast from St. John’s County to the northern 
part of Dade. The lake region scrub is richer in species than that of 
the Ocala area, as seems to be the case with most vegetation types 
near their centers of distribution. 
4. PALMETTO FLATWOODS OR LOW PINE LAND. 
(figure 63.) 
Within the area covered by this, report the low pine land is best 
developed in the Gulf hammock region, and in the Middle Florida 
flatwoods west of Dunnellon. There are also some patches a few 
hundred acres in extent in the northeastern part of the area, which 
is regarded as belonging to the lake region. It is designated on the 
soil map as “Leon sand” and “Leon fine sand.” It is a whitish 
sand, said to be underlaid in many places, at a depth of a few feet, 
by “hardpan.” Small outcrops of flinty limestone, rising a few 
inches above the surface, are frequent in the Gulf hammock region, 
but they do not seem to have much effect on the vegetation except 
where they are largest and closest together. The soil is damp and 
sour, with water not far below the surface, and apparently des¬ 
titute of animal life or nearly so. It is very little cultivated at 
