342 FLORIDA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY-THIRD ANNUAL REPORT.
Juncus effusus L.
In comparatively rich low grounds, usually as a sort of weed in damp pastures, ditches, etc. Grows on very impure peat in Leon and Franklin Counties.
Widely distributed in all temperate regions, in one form or another. Our plant has recently been described by Fernald & Wiegand (Rhodora I2: 90-92. 1910) as var. solutus, and said to range from New Brunswick to Texas, mostly in the coastal plain.
BROMELIACEAE. Pineapple Family.
Tillandsia usneoides L. (Long or Spanish) Moss. (Fics. 24, 26.)
Abundant in nearly every county in Florida, epiphytic on all kinds of trees that have branches (this excludes the palms), usually near water or limestone, or both. It hardly ever comes nearer to the ground than five or six feet. As it grows in nearly all our swamps, it must contribute largely to the formation of peat, but of course it is not found in the best peat deposits, because those are treeless.
Virginia to Texas, almost confined to the coastal plain. Also in the West Indies.
Tillandsia sps. Air-plants. (FIG. 21.)
The farther south one goes in Florida, the larger and more numerous the species of Tiilandsia become. Only one besides T. usneoides crosses the northern boundary of the State, or extends as far west as Wakulla County, but in the southernmost counties there are about a dozen. Their favorite habitat is hantm mocks, but several of them, such as T. tenuifolia, recurvata fasciculata, Balbisiana and utriculata, grow also in swamps, and therefore help to form peat.
PONTEDERIACEAE. Pickerel-weed Family.
Piaropus crassipes (Mart.) Britton. Water Hyacinth.
In permanent or nearly permanent (usually coffee-colored) quiet fresh water, in lakes, estuaries, prairie holes, etc., sometimes floating and sometime (where the water is very shallow) lightly attached to the bottom. Escaped from cultivation near Palatka about twenty years ago, and now pretty widely distributed over Florida, especially in the central portion. Abundant along the St. Johhs and Withlacoochee Rivers and in the edges of some of the larger lakes. In the last decade of the 19th century it threatened to choke up some of the navigable streams, but now one hears very few complaints about it. It is certainly a handsome plant, and it seems to form peat pretty rapidly, too, as explained on page 292.
Native of South America; naturalized in Florida, Louisiana, Texas, and perhaps a few other southern states.
Pontederia cordata L. Wamapee. Blue Water-lily. (PLATE 25.2.)
Grows in places where the water-level fluctuates from about the surface of the ground to a few inches above. Therefore avoids alluvial swamps, where the water gets too high and too low, non-alluvial swamps, where it does not fluctuate