Though the two plants: Bogbean, Menyanthes trifoliata L., and Shinleaf, Pyrola elliptica Nutt., were collected by the author about fifteen years ago, they have not been published.
Though the two plants: Bogbean, Menyanthes trifoliata L., and Shinleaf, Pyrola elliptica Nutt., were collected by the author about fifteen years ago, they have not been published.
Robinia is a temperate North American genus of four species. A broadly defined Robinia hispida of the southeastern United States consists primarily of sterile, mostly triploid clones; fertile, diploid kinds are locally endemic in the southern Appalachians. Robinia viscosa, of restricted natural distribution in the southern Appalachians, includes both fertile and sterile types. The other two species are R. neomexicana of the southwestern United States and the widely distributed R. pseudoacacia. There is evidently some hybridization between species both in nature and in culture. One new combination is listed: Robinia neomexicana var. rusbyi (Wooton & Standley) Martin and Hutchins ex Peabody.
The good news is that Biology 83 was to be the first volume of a periodical index to published literature in the biological sciences. It was designed to “provide immediate access to titles of research papers according to subject, higher taxonomy, or author name.” All of the papers indexed were published in 1983, in some 250 journals. I found every botany journal to be on the list except Rhododra. Looking up a citation in this index would be a little easier (and a lot less expensive) than going to Biological Abstracts, though some of the categories are not broken down as far in Biology 83.
The following 12 vascular plants are noted as new to the flora of Florida: Habranthus tubispathus, Cyperus reflexus, Scirpus deltarum, Trifurcia lahue subsp. caerulea, Juncus nodatus, Dracopis amplexicaulis, Euphorbia spathulata, Clinopodium gracile, Scutellaria ovata, Alchemilla microcarpa, Borreria densiflora, Antirrhinum orontium. Distributional information is provided for each plant and representative herbarium specimens are cited.
The flowering period was determined for 196 tidal marsh plant species, which included 89 monocotyledons and 107 dicotyledons and represented 63 families and 122 genera, in Mississippi. Observations on living plants in the field, over a 15 year period, were used to document precisely the sequence of flowering phenology. The shortest period of flowering, which occurred in 18 species, was one month with about one month for fruit maturation. The longest period of flowering and fruit development spans nine months. The average period of flowering for all species was 3.2 months. Three basic flowering patterns were noted and described. About 152 species are in flower during July, which represents the peak flowering period in Mississippi tidal marshes. About 65 monocots are in flower from June to August and about 85 dicots are in flower between August and September, representing peaks for these groups. In low salinity marshes, the peak flowering period is reached when 108 species are in bloom between June and July. The peak flowering period in brackish marshes is reached during August, when about 30 species are in flower. The peak flowering period in saline marshes occurs during September when 10 species are in flower. Of the 10 species occurring on hypersaline areas, about seven species are in flower during August. The data presented in this paper fill a void by providing a reference list and two indexes to the tidal marsh flora of Mississippi. The information may also be useful to botanist, researches and teachers on the coasts of Texas, Louisiana, Alabama and northwest Florida.
Specimens of the two cedar (limestone) glade endemics Petalostemon gattingeri (Leguminosae) and Leavenworthia torulosa (Cruciferae) in the Mohr Herbarium at ALU were not examined in recent taxonomic treatments of these genera. Thus, in Alabama, P. gattingeri is reported in the recent literature only from the northwestern part of the state, and L. torulosa is unreported. However, old specimens in the Mohr Herbarium show that, historically, P. gattingeri grew on “bald prairies” and limestone glades in central Alabama and L. torulosa on limestone glades in northern Alabama. Mohr included the yellow-flowered Leavenworthia aurea in his Plant Life of Alabama, and he incorrectly identified a fruiting specimen of L. uniflora as belonging to this species. We suggest that Mohr mistook fruiting plants of L. uniflora growing at Scottsboro in Jackson County for those that then were assignable to L. aurea (now called L. exigua var. lutea) which he had seen flowering at this site in early spring.
The partial demolition of a dam in southwest Virginia resulted in the drainage of a 35-hectare reservoir. The first-year vegetation which colonized the lake bed included Polygonum lapathifolium, Bidens cernua, Juncus effusus, Leersia oryzoides, Panicum dichotomiflorum, and Muhlenbergia frondosa. The lake bed was colonized primarily by weedy annuals (including grasses) which apparently germinated from seeds buried in bottom sediments. Cover values were affected by slope but not by grazing. Similarities are noted between this vegetation and that of exposed mudflats in either marsh or riverine environments.
Forty old-growth forest stands from the Piedmont Lowland of southeastern Pennsylvania fell into a vegetational gradient with peaks of importance in the order Fraxinus americana, Tsuga canadensis, Acer saccharum, Betula lenta, Quercus prinus, Fagus grandifolia, Quercus alba, Q. velutina, and Acer rubrum (the last three strongly associated with one another). The first three species were important in stands with high soil pH, Ca, Mg, and K, and the other species were associated with lower values of these variables. Fagus importance was significantly associated with high P values. Quercus rubra and Liriodendron tulipifera both occurred broadly across the vegetational and edaphic gradient, but were strongly dissociated from one another. The area, geographically transitional between the Piedmont and Glaciated sections of the former Oak-Chestnut Forest Region, is also vegetationally transitional, for it has a greater importance of non-quercine species then Keever found in the Piedmont to the southwest, but lesser importance of non-quercine species than Buell and co-workers predicted for the (glaciated) New Jersey Piedmont to the northeast.