Little Known Plant Materials and Their Uses in 
Securing Tropical Effects 
N. A. Reasoner, Oneco 
Such a subject as “Little Known Plant 
Materials and Their Uses in Securing 
Tropical Effects” naturally needs some 
clarification. To my mind it falls natu¬ 
rally into three divisions. 
First. General remarks on Florida 
Climatology—for without this we. would 
be at a loss for a definition of the “Trop¬ 
ical” part of the title. 
Second. Just what is meant by “Lit¬ 
tle Known Plant Materials”? To define 
this unknown I must first give the 
known, and I have therefore prepared 
a table of the commoner materials, with 
appropriate information thereon, which 
I will submit with this article but not bur¬ 
den you with just now. Following this 
I have prepared some information on the. 
more neglected materials which seem to 
me to offer promise but have not as yet 
come into general favor. 
And Thirdly, just what is meant by 
“Tropical Effects”? As we are consid¬ 
ering this from the standpoint of the lay¬ 
man rather than the artist it will be suf¬ 
ficient to mention only the more impor¬ 
tant motifs such as the Palm Motif, the 
Color Motif, the value of fragrance, etc. 
Having therefore defined and confined 
my subject let us pass to the true meat of 
the discussion. First, Florida Climatol¬ 
ogy- 
Perhaps you have already heard the 
joke, about the East Coast and West 
Coast Floridians who were arguing the 
respective merits of their own particular 
sides of the peninsula—but it happens to 
illustrate my point so I will tell it again. 
The subject under discussion was mos¬ 
quitoes. 
“Why, they’re so thick down in Dade 
County,” the East-Coaster said, “that 
you can swing a pint cup around your 
head and catch a quart of them.” 
“That’s nothing,” replied the West- 
Coaster, “over where I come from they’re 
so thick, and grow so big, you can’t find 
room to swing the cup.” 
And just so it is with our climate. No 
section of the State wants to be out-done 
by any other in this respect. 
“Why yes, just over the line in the 
other county they had a terrible freeze 
last winter; but it didn’t hurt anything 
here. No, siree, this is the warmest spot 
in the State of Florida! Oh, yes, you’ll 
see some dead ends on some of the trees 
where they were nipped a little, but it 
didn’t hurt them any. No, sir, our cli¬ 
mate just can’t be beat!” 
Just such tales as this can be heard in 
any locality over the State; and the mat¬ 
ter of accurate determination of damage 
resolves itself into a matter of one’s own 
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