The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1918-12-13
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FLORIDA WILD FLOWERS
by =
Mary (. Francis Baker
(Read at the State Fair at Jack
sonville

(Read at the State Fair at Jack
sonville
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When the famous botanist, Andre
Michaux visited Florida late in the
eighteenth century in his search for
rare plants, stopping, as his journal
records, at the ruins Of New Smyr-
ma" where more than four hundred
houses had been destroyed. and camp
ing by the beautiful st. Johns, he
travelled many difficult miles to find
nowers that the autoist .ooay passes
by on well-made roads. But Michaux
mad an advantage the autoist some
times lacks-for he saw the flowers.
II is astonishing in this state.
where the variety of wild flowers is
so great, and where grow so manv
rare and beautiful plants of strange
and intereting habits, that so little
attention is given to our native fora
Indeed, I have been told by the oh.
servant that there are no wild flow.
ers in Florida! Yet during one week
last winter / counted no less than one
hundred and fifty species in bloom
within the limits of few SQUARE
miles, in spite of the fact that light
frost had occurred in that region only
the previous month.
No wild flowers in Florida? More
than 5000 species of Towering plants
are already listed as growing in this
state, and this vast number does not
include our many cultivated plants.
Noted botanists who have visited
Florida declare that no part of the
United States can show a greater va
riety in its flora than is found in GER
tain localities in Florida; and no.
where else in this country are there
so many plants Of remarkably inter.
esting characteristics. Northern
flowers mingle here with the abun
dant southern fora, ana in the coun-
try below Miami is a tropical fora,
related botanically to the West In
dies rather than to the United States.
In diversity of size we have the
great magnolia, whose perfumed bios
SONS are larger than ones hand; AMI
we have also the tiny nolffia, smallest
OF known Towering plants, whose en-
tire growth is no larger than the head
Of common pin. +
During last May made list of the
native and naturalized plants grow
ing on the campus of Rollins College.
at Winter Park. The campus includes
twenty-five acres. the greater part of
which is high pineland. but the lake
shore, TO which the campus slopes, af-
fords an interesting variety of marsh
and aquatic plants. It should be re-
membered that at that season of the
year it was impossible TO make a com
plete list as number of fall and
winter plants had not starter, or we're
too small for Identification. But dur
ing the month of May, and within the
limits of those twenty-five acres
found more than three hundred differ
ent species of plants Probably the
entire number on the campus would
be not far from four hundred To
anyone who is not acquainted with
the wealth of Florida's fauna this
seems an astonishing number for tina.
limited area. Among these were the
butterfly pea, whose large blossoms
make an ordinary sweet pea 7Ower
seem insifnicantly small: and the
gorgeous Cherokee bean. or coral
plant. an American relative of the
beautiful coral trees OF India, which.
according 10 tradition doomed in the
garden of heaven until they were
stolen by Krishna. and for that reason
were banished from heaven and CON
demned to grow on EARN
OF insectiverious plants we have in
Florida more than a score of different
species. Most extraordinary plants
these are, which supplement their
food supply by catching and devour-
ing small insects. showing in this
habit of theirs a strange reversal OF
plants Even on the straight shafts
OF cabbage palms they grow. ne after
another in tufts on the trunk as
though climbing to the tropical ferns
that make their home among the
bases of the leaves above And many
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