170-FLORIDA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY-SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT. 
7. SANDY HAMMOCKS. 
(figures 58, 66 .) 
This type of vegetation occurs mostly on soils which were prob¬ 
ably originally the same as that of the high pine land, namely, “Nor¬ 
folk sand” and “Norfolk fine sand.” There is also several hundred 
acres of it about six miles south of Ocala on soil mapped as “Leon 
sand.” It is best developed in the areas last mentioned, on the north 
and south sides of the large patch of scrub about four miles west- 
southwest of Ocala, and on the numerous peninsulas around Lake 
Tsala Apopka. It grades into two other types which are very dis¬ 
tinct from each other, namely, scrub and high clay hammocks. 
The soil is sandy and loose, with usually enough humus to give 
it a light gray tint. The leaves of which the humus is chiefly com¬ 
posed decay very slowly, partly because of their leathery texture, 
and partly because of the scarcity of animal and bacterial life in the 
soil. Outcrops of flinty limestone are seen in a few places, but they 
seem to have little or no effect on the vegetation. No soil animals 
have been noticed, but they are probably not entirely wanting. Ap¬ 
parently the dense shade, or the scarcity of grass or some other food 
plant, discourages the salamanders, and without their assistance in 
stirring up the soil the potash and other mineral nutrients are prob¬ 
ably gradually being leached downward beyond the reach of the 
roots. . For a chemical analysis of this type of soil see No 1 . 3, 
page 123. 
The sandy hammock vegetation consists mostly of trees and 
shrubs with stiff evergreen leaves, growing closely enough so that 
little sunlight ever reaches the ground. Most of the trees have rather 
crooked trunks, a fact probably correlated with the sterility of the 
soil, and there are all gradations in size between trees and shrubs. 
Fire is a rare occurrence; originally because of the protection 
afforded by water or scrub or high hammocks* on one or more 
sides, and now because there is very little grass in the hammocks 
to feed flames, and the humus does not burn readily. Even if all 
the sandy hammock was not once pine land, it is reasonably certain 
*The fact that the areas of “Leon sand” a few miles south of Ocala, which 
are almost surrounded by high hammocks, are covered with sandy hammock 
vegetation, instead of the pine forests normal to such soils, is very significant. 
All the sandy hammocks on the map are partly protected from fire in one way 
or another. 
