Volume 84 – Issue 1 (May 2019)

SYSTEMATICS Quilling with (left to right) Lytton Musselman, Peter Schafran, and Carl Taylor. ECOLOGY Peter W. Schafran Elizabeth A. Zimmer W. Carl Taylor Lytton J. Musselman Timothy M. Shearman G. Geoff Wang Robert K. Peet Thomas R. Wentworth Michael P. Schafale Alan S. Weakley   The Richard and Minnie Windler Award recognizes the authors of the best systematics and ecology papers published in Castanea during the previous year. For 2019, authors of two papers were selected as winners: Peter W. Schafran, Elizabeth A. Zimmer, W. Carl Taylor, and Lytton J. Musselman for their work entitled “A Whole Chloroplast Genome Phylogeny of Diploid Species of Isoëtes (Isoëtaceae, Lycopodiophyta) in the Southeastern United States.” (Castanea 83[2]:224–235), and Timothy M. Shearman, G. Geoff Wang, Robert K. Peet, Thomas R. Wentworth, Michael P. Schafale, and Alan S. Weakley for their work entitled “A Community Analysis for Forest Ecosystems with Natural Growth of Persea spp.

Delmarva Lichens: An Illustrated Manual, by James Lendemer and Nastassja Noell, is a much-welcomed contribution that highlights the lichen and allied fungal diversity of the greater Delmarva Peninsula area. Delmarva, which is far easier than saying “the region encompassed by portions of Deleware, Maryland, and Virginia,” is admittedly among the more ecologically disturbed regions for which one might write a field guide. But this is precisely what makes this contribution so special: easy is it for the biodiversity scientist to flee the madness of industrialization, mass habitat destruction, super- urbanization, and the ever-increasing pace of the I-95 corridor for quieter mountains, better air, and might I say, less shittified habitat. Lendemer and Noell instead devoted a significant portion of a half of a decade collecting and studying this disturbed corridor in attempt to bring new awareness about more cyrptic forms of biodiversity that surround tens of millions of Americans. We

Taxonomists have traditionally distinguished two very similar Southern Appalachian endemic herbs, Micranthes careyana and M. caroliniana, by differences in four floral characters: sepal orientation, filament shape, petal coloration, and fruit length. Yet identification in the field and the herbarium has proven difficult, which is problematic for monitoring populations and determining rarity. The goal of this study was to examine these characters to clarify the differences between these species and their distribution, and to look for molecular differences in DNA sequences. Morphological variation was examined in the field and the herbarium, while leaf material was collected in the field for molecular analyses. Two of the four reported floral characters proved to be useful in species identification: sepal orientation and filament shape. Other key characters were not diagnostic to species. Fixed differences in floral characters were correlated with fixed differences in nuclear and chloroplast DNA sequences, supporting their distinction as unique species

Apocynaceae display highly complex and diverse floral morphologies. Pollen dispersal units include monads (single pollen grains; e.g. Plumeria), tetrads (Apocynum), and pollen packaged in pollinia, e.g. Asclepias and Cynanchum (Fishbein et al. 2018). All species produce adhesive from the specialized apex of the gynoecium (the style-head). At anthesis, this adhesive may be amorphous or molded into discrete translators; in either case, it functions to attach the pollen grains to each other and to pollinators, effecting aggregated pollen transport (Fallen 1986, Endress and Bruyns 2000, Livshultz et al. 2018). Species of one large lineage, the APSA clade, which includes ca. 3700 of the ca. 4500 species in the family, share the synapomorphic presence of a gynostegium, the structurally integrated style-head and anthers, which functions to place and remove pollen from visitors (Fishbein et al. 2018). It has been hypothesized that these floral modifications are adaptations that increase “pollen transfer efficiency” and

Endemic to the mountains of Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia, piratebush (Buckleya distichophylla, Santalaceae) is a rare, dioecious, hemi-parasitic shrub with a scattered and isolated distribution. Vegetative reproduction and few visible seedlings within the densest population of piratebush on Poor Mountain in southwest Virginia emphasize the need for research into this species’ reproductive biology to inform conservation strategies. Pollination data showed no evidence for wind pollination; instead multiple diurnal floral visitors to staminate flowers were observed. Fluorescence microscopy of stigma and styles on initiated fruits revealed almost 95% with pollen deposition. Most initiated fruits (52%) had tube growth continue to the base of the style, indicating potential fertilization. Pollination experiments showed outcrossing was necessary for fruit set. Non-pollinated flowers in bags had 0% fruit development, whereas fruit development in both open pollinated (86%) (p< 0.0001) and hand pollinated (65%) treatments (p<0.0001) were significantly greater. Embryo viability analysis indicated 73% of

ABSTRACT Snake Creek Gorge is in the Brevard Fault Zone of the Georgia Piedmont, USA. We conducted an inventory of the vascular plants of the gorge throughout the 2016 growing season in a 20 ha study area and additionally evaluated variation in community compositions in 91 100 m2 quadrats. We measured six habitat and community characteristics in each plot: relative elevation in the gorge, slope percentage, slope aspect, canopy cover, soil pH, and basal area. Ordination analyses of the plant communities were conducted and the six plot characteristics were included to evaluate correlations between habitat and community composition. The dominant natural community was mesic forest, while other community types included dry-mesic forest, riparian zones, boggy seepage areas, and rock outcrops. We documented 436 species and subspecific taxa. In the Georgia Piedmont, 62 of the taxa are uncommon, 27 are rare—including two threatened species—and 53 are not native. Twenty of the

ABSTRACT: The ability of seeds to persist long term and still germinate readily with substantial seedling survival are characteristics shared by many invasive plants, often leading to dominance of species in invaded sites. One rapidly spreading species in the United States is the Callery pear (Pyrus calleryana), which can form dense monocultures following bird dispersal of seed formed by cross-pollination among genetically different ornamental cultivars and rootstock. However, the length of viability of these seeds or their subsequent ability to germinate and survive as seedlings was unknown. We compared the percentage of seed germination and seedling survival using fruits collected from three cultivars in 2006 with a subsample kept in cold storage for 11 years; we also measured the viability of stored seeds that failed to germinate. Although seed germination declined, it continued to be substantial even after 11 years (45%–87%); seeds that did not germinate were viable in some

A second population of Phemeranthus calycinus (Montiaceae, large-flowered rock pink) was confirmed for southwestern Illinois. This is the second site known east of the Mississippi River for this taxon. Phemeranthus calycinus (Engelm.) Kiger (Montiaceae) Monroe County: open, nearly level outcrop of Au Vase sandstone, 35 m x 85 m, adjacent to an unnamed tributary of Horse Creek in the southern part of the county. Exact geographic coordinates are withheld to ensure the privacy, protection and viability of the population. W. McClain #2764, 5 August 2010, Eastern Illinois University (EIU). Significance: A population of Phemeranthus was incidentally discovered in southern Monroe County during the summer of 2001. This population, field identified as P. calycinus, was included as a rare species record in the Illinois Department of Natural Resources Natural Heritage database (Herkert and Ebinger 2002). However, species confirmation remained uncertain for several years. The herbarium specimen (W. McClain #2764) obtained in

ABSTRACT: Data from field trips and a survey of herbarium specimens was used to determine relative abundance of the ten known species of Rhododendron (Ericaceae) in each county of South Carolina. All counties were documented to contain at least one species. The western-most mountainous and upper piedmont counties of Oconee, Pickens, Spartanburg, and Greenville were found to have the greatest richness and the greatest number of documented populations. Of the four counties with only one documented species, three are in the piedmont and one in the coastal plain. Species found in the greatest number of counties were Rhododendron canescens, R. viscosum, and R. periclymenoides. Meanwhile species known from the fewest number of counties were R. calendulaceum, R. flammeum, R. maximum, and R. arborescens. Taxonomic keys were generated for species identification, the first key for spring and early summer flowering material, and the second for summer and fall vegetative or fruiting

New state records or clarifications of state distribution are presented for twenty taxa of vascular plants growing in West Virginia. These include twelve species considered native but overlooked in the state, one hybrid between species native to North America, four species native to North America but believed to be introduced in the state, and three species not native to North America.