PRELIMINARY REPORT ON PEAT.

borough Counties. The large and almost impenetrable Bay Swamp, in the northern part of Columbia and Baker Counties, which is mentioned in a few descriptions of Florida, but rarely shown on maps, probably consists at least in part of this type of vegetation. These bays are generally in comparatively level sandy country, but how they are formed is still a mystery. They bear considerable resemblence to the pocosins of eastern North Carolina, but those, too, are not well understood.
The following list of plants is compiled from one slash-pine bog between Ellsworth Junction and Astatula in Lake County, two between Auburndale and' Carter's, in Polk County, and one about two miles west of Plant City, Hillsborough County:
TALL TREES
Pinus Elliottii (slash pine)
MEDIUM-SIZED TREES.
Nyssa biflora (black gum) Acer rubrum (maple)
SMALL TREES
Magnolia glauca (bay)
SHRUBS AND VINES
Smilax laurifolia (bamboo vine) Viburnum nudum (possum haw) Pieris nitida Vitis rotundifolia (muscadine)
HERBS
Anchistea Virginica (a fern) Erianthus sp. (a large grass)
Osmunda cinnamomea (a fern) Gyrotheca tinctoria (paint-root)
Xyris fimbriata Ludwigia lanceolara
Osmunda regalis (a fern) Cladium effusum (saw-grass)
MOSSES
Sphagnum (perhaps several species)
The trees, shrubs and vines often grow very densely, making such places almost impenetrable. The herbs are relatively inconspicuous, and the Sphagnum carpets the ground everwhere. Samples of peat were taken from a bog of this kind about two miles west of Auburndale (locality No. 8). At the point tested it was about ten feet deep, with a bottom of very sticky black mud. This place (and perhaps most others of the same kind) seems to be subjected to occasional fires, which do great damage to the broadleaved trees and shrubs--especially the bays-but not much to the pmes.

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