PRELIMINARY REPORT ON 'PEAT.

Isnardia natans (Ell.) Small.?
Abundant in saw-grass marshes at the south end of Lake Eustis, Also occurs in sloughs and 'gator-holes in the southern part of the Everglades.
North Carolina to Mexico, in the coastal plain.
RHIZOPHORACEAE. Mangrove Family.
Rhizophora Mangle L. (Red) Mangrove. (PLATE I8.)
A very characteristic small tree of tropical coasts, one of the very few in the United States which will grow right in salt water. Said to have formerly extended as far north as New Smyrna and Cedar Keys, but I have not seen it even as far north as Tampa. (It has probably been killed back by some of the severe freezes of recent years.) In the coast prairie of Dade County, where salt water rarely comes, shrubby specimens about three feet high make a rather dense growth over thousands of acres. On the shores of Biscayne Bay and on some of the Keys it becomes a medium-sized tree, and seems to form consid erable peat. In the vicinity of the Ten Thousand Islands of Monroe County it grows 60 feet high, according to Sanford (Fla. Geol. Surv., 2nd Ann. Rep.. p. 194).
Widely distributed on the coasts of tropical America.
COMBRETACEAE.
Lagunctlaria racemosa Gaert. White Mangrove or Buttonwood.
Common near salt water in South Florida, with much the same range and habitat as Rhizophora, but less abundant than the other, except toward its northern limit.
Coasts of tropical America and western Africa.
Conocarpus erectus Jacq. Buttonwood. (PLATE 18.2.)
With the preceding, and often growing farther from salt water, as along the Miami River and at the south end of the Everglades and the inland edge of the coast prairie. Grows on peat in mangrove swamps near Lemon City and elsewhere.
Coasts of tropical America and western Africa.
LYTHRACEAE. Loosestrife Family.
Decodon verticil1a:us (L.) Ell.
In swamps in Escambia and Walton Counties, in marshy prairies in Madison and Polk Counties, in a cypress swamp near Leesburg, and among the water-hyacinths in the Withlacoachee River near Istachaitta; usually on a few feet of peat. Rather rare in [lorida.
Massachusetts to Minnesota, Florida and Louisiana, mostly in the glaciated region and coastal plain.

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