Images are set within the "new" tropical landscape. The Munroe collection includes many photographs of natural and pristine Florida scenery before its rapid urbanization.
The photographs were not only the reflection of an aesthetic appreciation of the new land but were also used to study and document the tropical flora and fauna. Some of this work appeared in an 1886 article of the Evening Post which depicted "twenty-seven distinct species ··· all familiar kinds to the sojourner in the tropical waters ··· but wholly unfamiliar to others, as they are not represented in colder waters."