Page:Florida Trails as seen from Jacksonville to Key West and from November to April inclusive.djvu/174

 *tiful yellow blooms of the utricularia. Along one tiny path or another which I follow along level miles, made by the range cattle and kept open as highways for all the wild creatures of the place, tiny motes of richest sunshine dance aside for my passing feet. Scarce larger than a pinhead are these blooms of Utricularia subulata, most elflike blooms, that seem to have no connection with earth. If you try to pluck them they shake all over with mirth which they cannot contain at your clumsiness. Leaves they have none, and the stem which bears them up is of such a neutral tint and of such gossamer fineness that it is almost impossible to see it. And that is all there is to it; a stem like a spider's thread, springing from moist sand or mud in the path, bearing on its invisible support this tiny scale of sunshine, making the most elusive and fairylike plant that one might find on a continent. In Northern swamps and on the borders of still lakes the utricularias have given me pleasure, but never have they supplied such an amazement of delight as they spread before my feet in these wild savannas of southern Florida.

Along with the path-haunting utricularias is another tiny plant whose Northern prototype is familiar. This is the sundew. I take the one that carpets portions of these moist, wild ways with rich red to be the Drosera brevifolia from