Volume 86 — Issue 1 (May 2021)

The Elizabeth Ann Bartholomew Award has been presented annually since 1989 to individuals who show a dedication to botany. Ms. Bartholomew, better known to many as Betty, served as secretary of SABC from 1946 to 1981. In addition, her life was dedicated to plants as she transferred her excitement to students of all ages and walks of life while at West Virginia University, in Morgantown. She was tireless in her duty and service to our society as well as botany. This award has been presented to individuals who have also distinguished themselves in professional and public services that advanced our knowledge and appreciation of the world of plants and their scientific, cultural, and aesthetic values, and also to those with exceptional service to the society. This award has previously been presented to 30 persons.

The Richard and Minnie Windler Award recognizes the authors of the best systematics and ecology papers published in Castanea during the previous year. For 2020, authors of two articles were selected as winners: Elizabeth McMurchie and Andrea Weeks for their article, “Vascular Flora and Ecological Community Assessment of the Blue Ridge Center for Environmental Stewardship, Loudoun County, Virginia” (Castanea 85[1]:42–64), and Justin P. Williams and Tracy S. Hawkins for their article, “Acorn Weevil (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) Predation Dynamics in a Mississippi Bottomland Hardwood Forest” (Castanea 85[1]:159–168).

In the Ridge and Valley physiographic province, knobs stand out as anomalous landforms embedded within a region of long, parallel ridges and valleys. In northeastern Tennessee, knobs are associated with the Sevier shale. Well-drained, acidic, channery loam Montevallo soils cover uplands of these knobs. A flora of the Sevier shale knobs of northeastern Tennessee identified 265 taxa in 57 plant families of which 13.6% were exotic and three were state listed (Berberis canadensis, Ruellia purshiana, Silene caroliniana var. pensylvanica). Many taxa had rarely or never been collected in northeastern Tennessee. The flora of the Sevier shale knobs was most similar to dolomite and limestone barrens of southwestern Virginia but among the species rarely collected in northeastern Tennessee, the greatest number was shared with floras of the Sequatchie Valley, middle Tennessee cedar glades, and barrens of the Tennessee eastern Highland Rim.

Limestone cedar glades, one of the rarest ecosystems in the world, are home to several uncommon species, including Trifolium calcaricum (Fabaceae), the running glade clover. Due to habitat destruction and fragmentation, the states of Tennessee and Virginia have listed T. calcaricum as an endangered species. To preserve T. calcaricum and increase its numbers, a reintroduction effort was initiated in 2016 in which individual plants were transplanted from a source site to secondary locations at Cedars of Lebanon State Park and Vesta Cedar Glade State Natural Area in Tennessee. In the current project, the extent of clonality among transplanted individuals was assessed using fluorescently tagged inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers. Sampled individuals were determined to be moderately clonal, with 46 sampled ramets representing 14 unique genets, with the estimated size of the largest genet being approximately 100 meters across. We provide baseline data for this understudied species and provide context for future work.

Three recent collections of Solanum pseudocapsicum represent the first documentation of this species from Alabama in 27 years, and apparently represent the only extant populations. The habitat of these collections appears to be different from that previously documented in Alabama, although it is not unusual range-wide. Solanum pseudocapsicum was last collected from Alabama in 1993 from Houston County, but searches of that location failed to relocate it. Previously it had been collected from Tallapoosa County (1877), Morgan County (1891), Lee County (1896), and Coosa County (1900), all in upland or ruderal habitats. In 2020 a small population of four plants was discovered on a floodplain near the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers and a second larger population of approximately 28 plants was located 10 km to the SW on the floodplain of the Alabama River, both in Elmore County. A third population of several dozen plants was discovered on the floodplain of the Tallapoosa River in Montgomery County.

The white, tubular, fragrant flowers of Guettarda scabra (Rubiaceae), rough-leaved velvetseed, open in the evening and are visited by hawkmoths (Sphingidae). Flowers last for one day, and recent observations reveal that butterflies also visit these flowers. Hawkmoths hover over the flower and lower their proboscis into the corolla to collect the nectar. Butterflies land on the petals before inserting their proboscis and may transport pollen on their bodies as well as their mouthparts. We conducted an experiment to determine the importance of each of these guilds for pollination of G. scabra. We excluded day-time visitors from some inflorescences and night-time visitors from others on the same plants (with two controls: some open all the time and some bagged all the time). We maintained this regimen during the entire flowering period of the selected inflorescences over two months and compared fruit set among the treatments. The control-open inflorescences and the night-open inflorescences had substantially higher fruit set than day-open and control-bagged inflorescences. Mean fruit set of day-open plus night-open inflorescences approximated that of control-open inflorescences, and although the fruit set of day-open flowers was small, it differed from bagged controls. Fruit set in G. scabra is determined almost entirely by hawkmoths, but butterflies may be useful as secondary pollinators. As plants flower in months when afternoon and evening rains can extend into the night, morning pollinators may be important. This study provides additional evidence that diurnal pollinators can contribute to the reproduction of predominantly nocturnal pollinated plants.

Hurricane Hugo was a category five storm in September of 1989 that significantly impacted natural areas along the Carolina coastal plain through wind damage and storm surge flooding. Francis Beidler Forest, an Audubon wildlife sanctuary in Four Holes Swamp, suffered severe damage to its forest canopy. In response to concerns that the rare spring ephemeral Trillium pusillum var. pusillum may be negatively impacted by the loss of the mixed hardwood canopy, we established permanent plots in the spring of 1990 with single leaf, triple leaf, and flowering individuals recorded by Ecology faculty and students at The Citadel. Disruption to the forest canopy would significantly alter forest floor microhabitat conditions negatively affecting T. pusillum var. pusillum population demography. There was no expected negative effect of Hurricane Hugo, and the loss of canopy cover on the population. Evidence suggests that the decrease in canopy cover and increased light was associated with increased flowering. The coefficient of variation, as a measure of cohort variability among years, increased from flowering, to triple leaf, to single leaf across the 29 years of population monitoring. There was a significant positive association between the number of named storms in the previous two and three years and the number of single leaf plants. There was no evidence that the population is decreasing, even though the number of flowering individuals has decreased. The results of this long-term demography suggest that even severe natural disturbances, like hurricanes and tropical storms, may have a positive effect on Trillium population dynamics.