PRELIMINARY REPORT ON PEAT.

Aronia arbutifolia (L.) Pers.
Sandy bogs, bays and non-alluvial swamps of various kinds, but rarely on good deep peat. Extends as far south as DeSoto County, but is not very common in Florida.
Widely distributed in Eastern North America, mostly in the glaciated region and coastal plain.
Rosa Carolina L.? Wild Rose.
Chiefly in and around calcareous swamps; hardly on good peat. FranklinWakulla, Duval and Levy Counties.
Said to range northward to Quebec and Minnesota.
HAMAMELIDACEAE. Witch-Hazel Family. Liquidambar Styraciflua L. Sweet Gum.* (PLATE 19.I.)
In various habitats, but preferring hammocks, especially low hammocks. Grows also on some well-wooded and essentially mature peat deposits, especially where the soil or water is a little calcareous. In this it resembles Parthenocissus, Berchemia, and several other plants already mentioned. Common as far south as DeSoto County.
Connecticut to Mexico, mostly less than Iooo feet above sea-level.
SAXIFRAGACEAE.
Itea Virginica L.
In moderately rich or calcareous swamps; sometimes on a few feet of peat. Frequent from DeSoto County northward.
New Jersey to Arkansas, most abundant in the coastal plain.
Decumaria barbara L.
In wet woods and springy swamps, often where the water is calcareous. (Outside of Florida it seems to have no use for lime, though.) Frequent north of latitude 300.
Virginia to Louisiana, outside of the mountains.
,SARRACENIACEAE. Pitcher-Plant Family. Sarracenia Drummondii Croomt
Common in sandy bogs, etc., from Liberty and Franklin Counties westward. Reaches its best development in the estuarine swamps of Santa Rosa County, where it grows nearly four feet tall.
Southwest Georgia to southeastern Mississippi.
*Also called "red gum" by government foresters and Mississippi valley lumbermen, especially in recent years.
tThis handsome and striking plant was described about three-quarters of a century ago by Hardy B. Croom, a noted botanist of that day, who was also the discoverer of two evergreen trees, Torreya (now Tumion) taxifolia and Taxus Floridana, which grow wild only on the east side of the Apalachicola River, as far as known, and of several other rare southern plants. His home was in eastern North Carolina, but he spent a considerable part of the last years of his life near Tallahassee, where one of his brothers had a plantation. An appropriately inscribed monument in front of the Episcopal church in Tallahassee testifies to the high esteem in which he was held by his neighbors in Florida.

333