PRELIMINARY REPORT ON PEAT.

Cladium effusum (Sw.) Torr. Saw-grass. (PLATES 19.2, 22, 24.2, 26, 28.)
Very abundant in nearly all large fresh marshes, such as the Everglades. Also turns up rather unexpectedly in various small shallow ponds, and even in low pine lands, in which cases I take it to indicate limestone near the surface. Grows in every county, with the possible exception of a few of the northernmost ones, such as Holmes, Gadsden and Hamilton. Rarely more than ioo feet above sea-level. Forms vast quantities of peat, which is not usually of the best quality for briquetting, etc., because it is apt to be rather coarse and fibrous.
Virginia to Texas, in the lower parts of the coastal plain (rarely more than ioo feet above sea-level). Also in the West Indies.
Dichromena latifolia Baldw
Wet pine lands, shallow ponds, etc., in the northern half of the State, espe dcially in the East Florida flatwoods. Also on shallow peat in estuarine marshes in Santa Rosa County.
North Carolina to Texas, in the coastal plain.
Dichromena colorata (L.) Hitchcock
In brackish, calcareous, and estuarine marshes, prairies, Everglades, etc. Widely distributed over the State (not yet observed in West Florida), but not abundant.
New Jersey to Texas, in the coastal plain. Also from Bermuda to Brazil.
Psilocarya sp.
In Hicks's Prairie (a wet saw-grass marsh) northeast of Eustis, and in shallow water in Lake Dora near Tavares.
Fimbristylis spadicea (L.) Vahl
In brackish marshes a few miles west of Apalachicola (doubtless in many other places near the coast), in the peat marsh bordering Crescent Lake, in the sandy prairies bordering Lake Harney, and in narrow marshes along the Miami River about two miles from its mouth.
Virginia to Brazil, mostly along the coast
Eleocharis interstincta (Vahl) R. & S.
In boggy places where the water-level fluctuates from the surface of the ground to a foot or so above, and has no current: as in some ponds and the wetter peat prairies. Rather rare. Often accompanied by Pontederia. Walton, Leon, Madison, Sumter, Lake and Polk Counties.
Massachusetts to Michigan. in the glaciated region; south to Florida and Miexico in the coastal plain. Also reported from the West Indies.
Eleocharis Robbinsii Oakes
Shallow margin of Lake Stanley, Walton County.
New B runswick to Michigan, in the glaciated region. Also in a few places m the coastal plain of North Carolina, Georgia and Florida.

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