Ecological Survey of a Florida Scrub

Mulvania, Maurice

Botanically, the Florida "scrub " is one of the most interesting and weird of plant associations. Economically, the plants, as well as the soil, have almost no importance. The nearly pure white sand of the ground surface, . when viewed from a .short distance, gives the impression of a thin rift of wind-driven snow. The vegetation is mostly dwarfed, gnarled and crooked, and presents a tangled, scraggly aspect. It appears to desire to display the result of the misery through which it has passed and is passing in its solution of life's grim riddle. Here live the rosemary ( Ceratiola ericoides), spruce pine (Pinus clausa), poor grub (Xolisma ferruginea) and their associates rooted in a bed of silica, to which the term soil is but remotely applicable. Here the sun sheds its glare and takes its toll of the unfit.

Ecological Survey of a Florida Scrub

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