Volume 63 – Issue 1 (Mar 1998)

Myakka River State Park is located in southwestern peninsular Florida, east of Sarasota, in Sarasota and Manatee Counties. It is floristically diverse with plant communities ranging from dry, scrubby flat woods to an extensive shallow lake-marsh system unique in this region. It includes the largest remaining area of the threatened Florida dry prairie community in the western part of the state.

A floristic study of the 11,686 ha park was conducted and collections of vascular plants were made between April, 1986, and May, 1996. The names are compiled in an annotated list, which contains 726 species (731 taxa) representing 124 families. The plant communities are briefly described and the influence of fire management practices are discussed.

The vascular flora of the Jones Ecological Research Center (Ichauway), a remnant longleaf pine/wiregrass ecosystem located in the Coastal Plain of Georgia, was inventoried. High species richness and large numbers of rare and endemic plants are associated with the open, fire-maintained longleaf pine forests and associated depressional wetlands and riparian hardwood forests. The study identified 1,013 taxa in 466 genera and 134 families. The total includes 392 species that are the first record of occurrence for Baker County, Georgia. The Georgia Natural Heritage Program lists 25 of these species as endangered, rare, or of special concern in the state of Georgia, two of which, Lindera melissaefolium and Schwalbea americana, are listed as federally endangered. Ninety-three (9%) of the taxa are introduced.

Noteworthy Collections: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Virginia

We investigated two Black Prairie relict sites at Sixteen Section Prairie, Oktibbeha County, Mississippi, in 1994-95. We documented 152 species of vascular plants, including 7 considered imperiled or critically imperiled in the state and 4 proposed for listing as possibly imperiled, imperiled, or critically imperiled. We delineated three different plant communities: the open prairie community, the prairie cedar woodland community, and the chalk outcrop community. A comparison of our findings with historical accounts of Black Prairie plant communities suggests recent (<150 years) changes in Black Prairie plant community structure. Using floristic data generated in this study, we also found evidence to further support the hypothesis that there are substantial similarities between Mississippi and Arkansas blackland prairies. At the same time, our data suggest that Mississippi and Texas blackland prairies differ in overall character.

Alliaria petiolata (M. Bieb.) Cavara & Grande (garlic mustard) is a non-indigenous member of the Brassicaceae that is invading woodlands throughout eastern North America. Previous work has demonstrated that this species is having a negative effect on the diversity of understory communities and is actively displacing native species. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the extent to which allelopathy might be acting as the mechanism of interference. Extracts of garlic mustard root and shoot tissues were applied to seeds and seedlings of four target species used as bioassays: radish, winter rye, hairy vetch, and lettuce. While seed germination rates varied by species and extract concentration, total germination after 5-7 d was largely unaffected by any extract concentration. Only radish seeds treated with the most concentrated root solution exhibited a depressed germination relative to the water control. Likewise, seedling biomass was generally unaffected by any extract treatment. Only shoot biomass for rye was significantly depressed with the highest concentration of leaf extract. Our data provide little evidence that allelopathy is involved in the invasive success or community interference of this non-indigenous species, even though the Brassicaceae are well known to possess potentially biologically active compounds with allelopathic effects.

The only extant native population of Astragalus tennesseensis A. Gray in the midwest was monitored from 1984 through 1995, during which time there was a severe drought that extended from 1987 through early 1989. The total population size reached a low of 14 plants in 1989 and a high of 176 plants in 1990. The average number of plants present per year was 76.3. The average life span for 29 plants that survived their seedling year was 3.6 years, and the longest any plant lived was 7 years. Mortality of mature plants was due primarily to stem boring insect larvae. Mortality of seedlings in their first year was 67% and was apparently caused by moisture stress and uprooting by wind.

For several decades the Asian leguminous vine known as Kudzu has borne the name Pueraria lobata (Willd.) Ohwi. Since the early 1990s an alternate name, Pueraria montana (Lour.) Merr., has been in occasional use. When persons employing this second name were queried, no clear understanding as to the basis for the proposed change was forthcoming. This note is intended to document the search for this basis, and to determine the correct name of the Kudzu

The Confederate daisy is well-known to many southerners, and photographs of it are found in the popular wild flower books by Duncan and Foote (1975) and Rickett (1967), where it is listed as Viguiera porteri (A. Gray) S. F. Blake. This fall-blooming annual herb may reach to about 1 meter in height (or taller in gardens) and is “wholly confined” (McVaugh 1943) to “thin soil about granite” flat-rocks and granitic domes (Cronquist 1980), interesting habitat islands that dot the Piedmont Province of the southeastern United States. Factors responsible for its endemism to granite flat-rocks were discussed by Mellinger (1972). The Confederate daisy may be locally common to dominant on granitic flat-rocks, most of which “are not prominently elevated above the surrounding piedmont, Stone Mountain being atypical” (Wurdack and Wurdack 1978).

An innovative new addition to the teaching materials on plant systematics is always a welcome addition for instructors in a field with limited options for textbooks. This new edition of Contemporary Plant Systematics, first published in 1991, consists of 15 chapters addressing the following topics: significance of systematics, plant names, literature, identification, collecting and preserving, fern families, gymnosperm families, flowering plant terminology, dicots, monocots, history of classification, vascular plant origins, modern methods of systematics, endangered species, and the role of botanical gardens.