The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1912-01-21
FLOWERS AND FERNS
OF FLORIDA
d I'LL n. JERAuLp.

Florida wei deserves the name. or
as the nurserymen are fond Of saying.
1T is true to name" Nature has
surely done her best in identifying
land and water.
Anyone who has comprehensive
eye for beauty of arrangement and
color cannot walk far through the
woods without being allied with won
DER and delight at the varied display.
Early in the spring the Rosemary
with its dainty lavender tinted flowers
is seen everywhere, the woods seem
carpeted with It; on the banks OF the
bayou grow the bush honeysuclzle. red,
yellow and white reflected vividly in
the water; the ti-ti fills the air with
the fragrance OF its delicate white
hloom. The swamps are full Of this
ti-fi and the flowers are Of CONNER
clal value for the bees make the
choicest of honey from them.
Some one has been writing of the
worthless ti-ti," perhaps II is worth
less to the turpentine men and the
lumber and mill men. but If it is cut
away the honey supply OF Florida will
BIZ destroyed and the honey made
from the ti-ti blooms is equal in
clearness and flavor to the much
praised white clover honey Of the
liorth.
The swamps in this section of the
i,ounsry are not disease breeding holes
INT are cool. shady. quiet beauty spots
where nature is shown at her best;
the water found there is clear and
GIBBS and flows with the tides of the
bayou. One hot day in summer we
STARTED to the post office: the walk
was through the piney woods and over
blackjack hammocks, going down a
hill at the foot of which was small
fresh water stream spanned by a RUS
tis,e bridge we noticed a very heavy
bamboo ereeper. It was hanging IN
such thick folds that It looked like
curtain and I remarked to my COM
panion, Il must see what it hides"
Upon examination found that 1t had
grown upon two oaks and hung down
from their branches. These oaks were
also heavily draped with the gray
Spanish moss. I went around the cur
tain Ut was impossible to go through
IT'D forcing my way through tho un-
derbrush. came upon a scene Of
such perfect beauty, such quiet. peace
full restfuIness that words fail to do
justice to #. The stream had widened
to g deep. stiH poor completely hid
den from the chance passerby by the
bamboo curtain, the Spanish moss and
the dense underbrush. The water was
so deep and so shaded that 1t was
almost black and in this water grew
dozens of the far famed Crinum with
their umbels of large lily like lowers
six or eight to the spike; among thern
was the Orontfum, or golden club,
with its foreground waxen blossom
resembling candle so perfectly that
1t Is sometimes called the candle plant.
The blossom is round and hard. some
tiples over q foot long, and is white
for two-thirds Of its length. then yell
loyv and tipped with pink shading into
red. The sagittaira or arrow head. as
it Is commonly called, thrust up its
leaves and spikes Of blooms above the
crilaums and orontium, and fern and
spaghnum moss joined the land and
water. No q ripple on the surface If
the water and as in mirror these
beauties were reflected. 1t was my
first view of the crinum and Orontium
where nature had planted them and
they far exceeded any ever seen In
private collections.
At the head of one of our bayouss
the native white pond lily grows in
great profusion. II has large leaves
and dazzling white flowers three to
fivis inches across. Odorata they are
catalogi'ed by the florist. then the
odorata minor grow in these waters. n
smaller leaf and blossom but other
wise Identical
The swamps are full of ferns of all
kinds from the delicate narrow the
lypteris to the large fronded coarse
unitum. A lily resembling the Gala
lily both in leaf and bloom Grows
among the ferns and moss.
And the carnivorous plants on
which Darwin wrote a large volume
to prove that these plants caught anl
absorbed insects as food. His belief
has been severely questioned and at
present writing the discussion is far
from being settled. Peter Henderson
made mary eIaf crate experiments and
claimed that Darwin's theory was not
correct. These sacramento or pitcher
plants are very curious as well as
beautiful. The pitcher, which is really
the leaf. sometimes grows two feet
high. This leaf Is slender at the base
and widens at the top like an ordi
nar.9 tin horn The largest variety,
the fiava, often produces trumpet like
pitchers three feet high. These pitch
era arc green spotted with white and
yellow. Some are red, spotted with
white. The flowers are yellow and as
curious as are the leaves or pitchers
These plants, over which famous
scientists have wondered and disputed,