

















































aes etc., ete., have contrib- 
~ both historical and horticul- 
1 atmosphere. 
But the completion of the Over- 
i the railroad, has changed the pic- 
ture, and the world is beginning to 
_ Picture Changed by Overseas 
; Highway 
Particularly. is this so in regard 
to plant lovers and gardeners. While 
artists, writers, naturalists, climate- 
seekers, and fishermen find their 
_ special interests fully satisfied, it is 
_ the amateur horticulturist who re- 
- ceives a genuine thrill at discover- 
ing for him or herself the tropical 
flora that is met on every side, and 
_. whose presence so close to home has 
never, curiously enough, been her- 
-alded even in the land of high-pow- 
ered advertising which is Florida. 
- The traveller entering Key West 
from the highway, along the mod- 
ern palm-bordered Roosevelt boule- 
yard (modelled on Havana’s famous 
- Malecon) is not prepared for the 
contrast between the low-growing 
-vegetation of the key and the great 
>) ee trees lining the streets of 
the old part of the town. Man- 
groves, sea grapes, beach plums, 
fe 
ering plants and beach vines which 
have held the scene for 158 miles, 
give way to a profusion of ‘tropical 
growth whose size and development 
_ bespeak its long presence, yet of 
‘whose existence no previous hint 
has been received. And the ques- 
tion naturally arises, “Why the si- 
lence?” Certainly few realize that 
a eye: West is the oldest settlement 
Pein southern Florida, and its streets 
- were lined with established tropical 
trees, its homes and gardens adorned 
with shrubs, vines and plants of 
unparalleled beauty and luxuriant 
ae before Miami was eee 

 oOpopanax, etc., with dwarfer flow-_ 

By VIOLET NILES WALKER 
In The National Horticultural Magazine 

where Dr, Fairchild established the 
nucleus of the U. S. Plant Introduc- 
tion Garden around 1898. 
Key West has belonged to the 
United States for only 120 years, 
and economically has undergone al- 
most unequalled vicissitudes. Long 
before Flagler built his cherished 
Florida-East-Coast-to-Cuba railroad, 
when communication with the main- 
land was only by slow water trans- 
portation, the Island City achieved 
a prosperity that made it at the time 
the richest city per capita in the 
United States, until a wave of sud- 
den, overwhelming cataclysms com- 
pletely reversed the picture. 
Looking at it geographically, as 
we know, it is a tiny bit of coral 
rock lying at the tip end of the 
string of little coral islets which ex- 
tend 120 miles southwest from the 
Florida mainland into the sub-trop- 
ics. It is about 5 degrees north 
of the Tropic of Cancer. The straits 
of Florida and Gulf stream on the 
east, and the Gulf of Mexico on the 
west exert a greater climatic influ- 
ence than its actual latitude would 
indicate. Frost never occurs, and 
vegetation from the tropics flour- 
ishes side by side with the sub-trop- 
ical flora of the keys and the rich 
z Everglades. 
Period of Spanish Control 
We are told that southern Florida 
and the keys were the last portion 
of the continent to emerge from the 
ocean, and it is interesting to note 
the gradual diminution of the soil 
deposit, none too deep for all of its 
richness, even. on the Florida main- 
land; for at Key West there is an 
average layer of barely 12 inches 
of earth. Moreover, any water is 
brackish. Pure water from boring 
wells has never been obtained on 
the island, and. the conservation of 
rainwater assumes the same impor- 
tance for human life and vegetation 
that it does in the West Indies gen- 
erally. 
’ The Spanish discovery and domi- 
nation of the West Indies and the 
southern end of the American. con- 
tinent naturally included the long 
string of islets now known as the 
Florida Keys. These were long un- 
inhabited except for wandering 
tribes of Indians. 
From the time of their discovery 
in the XVIth century up to the early 
part of the XIXth, the Florida Keys 
had not been objects of coloniza- 
tion, chiefiy because early in their 
history they had become the strong- 
hold of pirates, who, for over 200 
years were the terror of the Span- 
ish Main. The numerous bays among 
the islands offered safe hiding- 
places from -which to sally forth, 
and the intricate and dangerous 
channels afforded strong protection 
from the arm of the law. This, in- 
cidentally, was none too long, as 
the pirates paid tribute to the Span- 
ish crown, and enjoyed a care-free 
immunity in the successful pursuit 
of their_trade.. .. 
With the terror of piracy removed, 
the little island immediately be- 
came the objective of a heterogen- 
eous mixture of settlers from all 
over the world, and the town, laid 
out in 1829, grew rapidly and pros- 
pered phenomenally. The early lu- 
crative wrecking business laid the 
foundations for greater wealth, and 
this was followed by the building 
up of a flourishing trade in sponges, 
fish, turtles, salt, tropical fruit (es- 
pecially the canning of pineapples), 
to which was added the manufac- 
ture of cigars when political refu- 
gees from Cuba brought their fac- 
tories from Havana; and an era of 
unparalleled prosperity ensued. 
With the realization of Flagler’s 
dream of the railroad came’ added 
prosperity, and it looked as though 
the fortunes of Key West were on a 
fabulous up and up. But suddenly the 
tide turned. . Since then Key 
West has lived on Government aid, 
and though a small group of rep- 
resentative citizens are struggling 
manfully to help the city help it- 
self, many of the projects planned 
before present war conditions must 
be delayed to the future. 
An Architectural Mixture 
Architecturally, Key West is a 
mixture of types. The earlier homes 
follow the beautifully simple lines 
found in the Bahamas or Cuba, with 
sloping roofs, galleried second 
stories, high ceilings, solid shuttered 
windows. Many have outside stairs 
to the second story. The Victorian 
era left its mark with many more 
pretentious houses, while the mod- 
ern trend is toward low, spreading 
types. The array of small, and for 
the most part unpainted, wooden 
homes of the Cuban, Mestizo and col- 
ored population, are built back from 
the street, and follow an almost uni- 
form pattern, each with its little 
front yard generally a tangle of 
tropical plants. 
The architecture is soon forgotten 
in the bewildering variety of shrubs, 
vines and plants, and soon one re- 
alizes the value of the soft grey 
tones as a background for the gor- 
geous tropical vegetation, and the 
