Spotted Beebalm
Spotted Beebalm, Spotted Horsemint
Monarda punctata
Lamiaceae, Mint Family
No doubt many wildflower and garden-flower enthusiasts with northern roots had their first native Monarda experience with the attention scarlet Oswego-Tea (Monarda didyma) and with the violet-purplish Wild-Bergamot (M. fistulosa). The ruling species around here is the Spotted Beebalm (Monarda punctata), which ranges into the northern states, including as a prairie flower. (For the sake of completeness, another Florida species north of our stomping grounds is Lemon Beebalm, Monarda citriodora.)
Spotted Beebalm is a one-plant flower show with rich purple bracts, purple-tinged calyx, and purple-spotted two-lipped white to slightly yellow corollas with gaping mouths. This could be taken as a classroom example of a bee-pollinated flower, with a horizontal landing platform grooved with a debatable nectar guide, and with all those irresistible purple polka dots. And bees do arrive aplenty. Many species. Butterflies show up too. The more the merrier. Spotted Beebalm is living testimony to wasps as floral visitors too.
Wasp-pollination is mildly surprising, because wasps are generally carnivores at heart, and are known to visit flowers as hunting grounds for buggish prey. Maybe that was the original reason for wasp-flower visits. In any case, some wasps extract pollen and nectar nutritionally, obviously spreading pollen in the process. CLICK
Look closely at the photo. As with most two-lipped flowers, the stigma (pollen-receiver) and anthers (pollen-makers) are pressed up to the top of the inside of the floral tube (the roof of the mouth). That way, bees pushing into the tube brush past the stigma, dropping off pollen, and past the anthers, receiving pollen. Monardas characteristically have wide-spreading anthers, and are split into two subgroups of species, divided over whether the anthers and stigmas are shorter than the tube, or jut out from it.
Now comes a little speculation: Broaden the view a moment, say, to Orchids, the most diverse plant family. Orchids have intricate pollination mechanisms tending to correspond to individual pollinator species. Many members of the Mint Family likewise have complex systems involving levers and mousetraps apparently to interface with narrow ranges of bee species. But Monardas seem (repeat: seem!) to have comparatively simple systems by mint standards not particularly specialized for anybody, and thus open to the plenteous biodiversity drawn to the blossoms. Their specialty seems to be splashy billboard advertising rather than a niche market. Beebalms are the Yeehaw Junction of the wildflower world.
Clumped in a naturalistic garden, Spotted Beebalm has pros and cons. It is an occasional component in the sunnier gardens on the Palm Beach State College campus. When in full glorious bloom, Spotted Beebalm earns ooohs and ahhhs from passers-by. But glory is fleeting, and when not in flower the plants are far less attractive, and not durable. Is the plant a perennial or an annual? Yes. The individual stems decline post-flowering and look crummy. The plants re-seed, which is good or bad depending on your standpoint. Flowering time is hurricane-time, late summer, early fall. (This post is a collaborative effort by John Bradford and George Rogers. John took the photo.)
Tell the Dentist “Hold the Novocaine”—You’ve Got Toothache Tree
Wild Lime, Prickly-Ash
Zanthoxylum fagara
Rutaceae
Wild Lime is no real lime, although it is a native hammock-dwelling Citrus in the fragrant company of Torchwood (Amyris elemifera), Hercules Club (Zanthoxylum clavis-herculis), and many additional native and cultivated Florida Citrus species. The approximately seven native zanthoxylums in the U.S. plus the 200 others worldwide have a rich history in human affairs.
Listing the umpteen afflictions historically treated with these bioactive trees would be tedious, so we’ll zoom in on a couple. Zanthoxylum species are sometimes called Toothache Trees, and they do have well substantiated ability to numb the mouth dating back to pre-European applications, as reflected in diverse Native American names. Pharmacological research has backed this up in a modern scientific context, and there is some interest in the plant’s chemistry relative to leukemia. At a less sophisticated level, Zanthoxylum juice has turned up in commercial natural toothpastes.
Wild Lime fruits in September. Photo by JB
Crushed Zanthoxylum parts present a citrusy spicy fragrance, and serve most saliently as Sichuan Pepper from various Asian species. The spice is also call “fagara,” giving today’s species its specific epithet. Zanthoxylum means yellow wood, a self-explanatory name; the wood, bark, and roots yield a yellowish dye.
For gardeners who can live with bloodthirsty spines, Wild Lime is an attractive and tough smallish landscape tree or shrub tolerant of drought, of alkaline soils, and of life near the sea. This and other ornamental native and non-native Citrus species are vectors of Citrus Greening and no doubt of additional ailments afflicting the Florida Citrus industry, and thus are unwelcome trucked commercially around the state.
The trees are dioecious, that is, separate male or female. This is a remarkable reproductive system in a large woody plant where half of the individuals are devoted solely to pollen production. But then again, the same can be said of mice and men. The small dehiscent pods contain merely one black glossy seed.
Wild Lime is among the diverse Citrus species valuable as host plants for the Giant Swallowtail Butterfly whose larva looks like a bird dropping on the tree’s stem. The endangered Schaus Swallowtail depends mostly on the related Torchwood, raising the question of Wild Lime serving potentially as a “plan B” for this swallowtail.
This post is a collaborative effort by John Bradford and George Rogers.
Sesbania vesicaria will raise a few blisters
Sesbania vesicaria
Bladderpod
Fabaceae, Leguminosae
A trip to Kissimmee Prairie State Park today revealed beautiful Sesbanias to be the plants of the day John and George stopped the car to check on Danglepod, Sesbania herbacea, in a roadside ditch near the park. This species is probably native, although perhaps a little too weedy and widespread for its exact origins to be clear. The pod is long and skinny, in contrast with today’s featured species below, and the standout feature is underground, or better put, under water. The root mass looks like Santa’s beard, a bleached-white spongy mop studded with nitrogen-fixing nodules on steroids slurping nutrients so aggressively out of the stinky canal water you could almost hear it. If you ever need a plant to sop nutrients out of eutrophic water, here’s a candidate—or do all those nitrogen-fixing nodules put nitrogen back in? A water-lover for sure. Various species of Sesbania have “river hemp” as part of their names.
Sesbania herbacea with awesome roots. Note the root nodules. Taken 10/2/11 by JB.
Being fast-growing, tolerant of hard times, and nitrogen-fixing, species of the large genus Sesbania have worldwide roles as green manures, fodders, and similar applications, although the seeds (and other parts?) are toxic. They are also showy, which no doubt is why Sesbania punicea with flame-colored flowers and winged pods has escaped cultivation to become a Category II invasive exotic in Florida and beyond. Why does somebody always have to sell every #$%^ weed with colorful flowers? And why does every species of Sesbania have its own weird pod?
Sesbania vesicaria. Photo by JB.
Colorizing the lonesome prairie is Sesbania vesicaria with three-toned blossoms in lively salmon red shaded with deep maroon and with a sunny yellow eye. You can’t miss them. The name Bladderpod is self-explanatory upon encountering the bladder, and is reflected in the species name “vesicaria,” which means puffed up. Vesicants cause blisters. The mature legume is puffy, bloated, pointy at the ends, and dangling decoratively. Confession time: having seen the bladder dangling on bare twigs in the off-flowering months, the identity was not obvious until leaves and flowers illuminated the pretty truth. The pod could pass for a large insect pupa, except for being full of seeds.
Pineland Chaffheads
Pineland Chaffheads
Carphephorus carnosus CLICK
Asteraceae
Carphephorus carnosus has a striking appearance, the slightly succulent leaves mostly at the plant base, in low rosettes, often crowded in sizable patches, stiff and knife-shaped. The appearance suggests a desert species, or maybe something from a rock garden.
The geographic distribution is interesting too. Restricted more or less to central Florida, the species occurs in pinewoods, prairies, and low open usually moist habitats. These habitats are hardly the desert/rock garden just mentioned, except in a seasonal sense. The habitat are places of periodic fire, of blazing sun, and of poorly drained sandy soils where conditions flip-flop between seasonally soggy and seasonally xeric.
Carphephorus carnosus in early September
The plants seem highly adapted to fire. The dense patches of low rosettes appear to be fire-resistant: low and tough, out of harm’s way from blowing flames and blowing winds. The congested leaf islands formed by the crowded rosettes appear to offer flame-proofing like buffalo in a ring. The edges may fry, but the inner reachers are protected. The plants have a hard knotty core to which they can burn back or die back in the dry season, to regenerate fresh leaves in the summer months, culminating with flowering in the safe rainy autumn. Turning briefly to a related species, Carphephorus paniculatus is not just fire-tolerant, but also fire-dependent. The latter species has been documented to decline by 75% after three decades of fire protection. This is probably true of C. carnosus as well. These pioneer species with parachute “seeds” (achenes) can blow readily into recently burned areas.
Species of Carphephorus are glandular, with the fragrance champion being C. odoratissimus, “Vanilla-Leaf,” with vanilla-scented foliage. The most obvious explanation for the aromatic essences is protection from herbivores. Although the fragrance suggests vanilla, it differs chemically from the natural orchid extract. The volatile essences from C. odoratissimus are a mix of sesquiterpenoids (these are common in Asteraceae), miscellaneous other compounds, and, primarily, coumarin, which can smell like vanilla. Coumarin is scattered among diverse plant families as a feeding deterrent; among other effects, it suppresses livestock appetites, and converts into a toxic anticoagulant, making it useful in modern human pharmacology.
These plants undoubtedly have ecological secrets relating to their harsh habitats. Their beauty comes in large part from their stark toughness topped with rich purple flower heads. This post is the outcome of a trip to Jonathan Dickinson State Park by John Bradford and George Rogers. John took the photo.
St. Andrew’s Cross
St. Andrew’s Cross St. John’s Wort
Hypericum hypericoides
Clusiaceae
Every time I (G. Rogers) think about St. John’s Wort my mind jumps to a business wonder. Near my parent’s home in Brevard NC is Gaia Farms CLICK where roadside weeds are spun into gold, or at least ground up and bottled. Lots of weeds, apparently lots of gold, and yes, Gaia carries one of the mainstays of herbal remedies, St. John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum, a different species of Hypericum than today’s species).
Species of Hypericum as folk remedies date back into antiquity. Once upon a time back when spells and curses were pesky, Hypericum served as witch-repellent. In modern times we are more troubled by depression than hexes, and the herb sells as depression-repellent. Also there is interest in it as a potential antiviral drug. We do not have the expertise to pronounce on the efficacy or safety of Hypericum products, but we do have a strongly developed general skepticism of witch-cures.
Like many plants with a medicinal history, there is toxicity. These plants when ingested photosensitize the skin, making it susceptible to sun damage, potentially fatally so. There’s a nod to this in the Gaia instructions: “Avoid excessive exposure to UV radiation (e.g. sunlight, tanning) when using this product.” Hypericum species poison livestock, especially cattle.
All this medical schooling is a prelude to John’s and George’s opening-day-for-archery-hunting exploration of the Corbett Wildlife Management Area Hungryland Slough. We kept our heads down on the swamp boardwalk. Prominently in bloom was St. Andrew’s Cross, Hypericum hypericoides.
Hypericum hypericoides
Hypericum is a big genus of over 400 species, with a few dozen growing wild in Florida. Identification hints for St. John’s Worts generically are yellow flowers having 4 or 5 free petals and stamens that you can count. The opposite leaves are freckled underneath with tiny black or translucent spots as seen with a hand lens. One the more abundant species, dominating local “Hypericum marshes,” is Peelbark St. John’s Wort (H. fasciculatum), which has shredded reddish bark and five petals. Our own Hypericum hypericoides distinctively combines four petals with two styles in the flowers on a shrubby frame bearing sessile more or less elliptic leaves. (Our other locally present four-petal species have three styles.)
How did the common name for Hypericum hypericoides become “St. Andrew’s Cross,” while a separate species Hypericum crux-andreae (St. Peter’s Wort) seems to have a natural claim on the former name? Even with references to three different saints, you can’t fix the world in one blog. (This account comes from a collaborative effort by John Bradford and George Rogers. Saint John took the photo.)
Button Rattlesnake Master
Button Rattlesnake Master
Eryngium yuccifolium
Apiaceae
Today John Bradford and George Rogers wandered through the Sweetbay Natural Area adjacent to the Palm Beach North County Airport. The area is named for the Sweetbay Magnolia (Magnolia virginiana), but this post will feature a much odder plant that was in full bloom today.
Sweetbay in August
What plant looks like a yucca straight from the desert, has white flowers packed into congested heads like so many other locally abundant species, and smells like carrots when bruised? The Button Rattlesnake Master: Eryngium yuccifolium. The globe-shaped heads of small white flowers resemble those of Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) and Buttonweed (Spermacoce verticillata, not native). All three were in flower in close proximity. It would be interesting to know how much overlap they have in flower visitor species. Probably much. Many species visit the Eryngium.
Being a member of the Carrot Family (Apiaceae), it comes by the carrot smell honestly. And, yes, the plant has a taproot. The long skinny leaves look more like those of a Monocot (such as a true yucca or a grass) than the Dicot this species is. Around here the plants reach about three feet tall.
Eryngium yuccifolium
Eryngium yuccifolium is odd and beautiful enough to be a garden plant, and it is, being started readily from seeds. The species is distributed across the southern and central U.S. from Florida to Minnesota in diverse wet and dry habitats ranging from limestone glades to pinewoods to tall grass prairie, all demanding the characteristic of requiring durability, especially to withstand fires—burning pine woods in the South and burning prairies in the mid-West. When the top fries or dies, regeneration comes from the taproot.
Why the name “Rattlesnake Master”? According to some accounts, Native Americans rubbed the pulverized root onto the hands to gain mastery over rattlesnakes. (Relevantly somehow, on a prior visit to Sweetbay we encountered a pygmy rattler at the very site where the Eryngium grows.) According to other reports, the name has to do with historical uses to treat snakebites. Extracts from Eryngium roots reportedly reduce inflammation, so the snakebite treatment is a folk use with potential extension into modern pharmacology.
Maturation of the flowers is protogynous (pro-TOJ-eh-nus), that is, female first. The stigmas poke out early between the petals, with the flower remaining otherwise closed. The closed petals hold the stamens in. Eventually the petals spread, the stamens emerge, and it is male-time. The male and female phases overlap, and the flowers are self-compatible, resulting in high seed production. Neat system-eh? The flower is receptive to outside pollination before it can pollinate itself. If there is no outside pollination, then the flower self-pollinates as Plan B. (This post is a collaborative effort by John Bradford and George Rogers. JB took the plant picture. GR took the scenic vista.)
Dogs Beware of the Leafless Swallow-Wort!
Leafless Swallowwort
Cynanchum scoparium
Apocynaceae
An older synonym for this plant contains the wonderfully apt genus name Amphistelma, meaning “surrounding wreath.” You’ve got to see it to appreciate the name. This garland-forming vine, which becomes leafless with age, wraps and smothers its host, as botanist John Kunkel Small noted in his Flora. The intertwined stems twist together in parallel resembling those twiggy grapevine wreaths in arts and crafts stores. Too bad about changing nomenclature, because the less descriptive prevailing name now, Cynanchum, merely means dog-choker, relating to the handle “dogbane” applied to related species. The name “swallow-wort” embraces multiple plants in the Milkweed Family and beyond. It may allude to toxicity.
Wandering deeper into the speculation zone, the tendency toward leaf loss with advancing age is an apparent adaption to the vine’s changing circumstances along life’s journey. Youngsters are leafy, as any proper hammock-understory upstart should be. But eventually the vine climbs a host plant, breaks forth into the sunny overstory, and sheds its leaves, taking on a more xeriphytic, stem-photosynthetic, low-water-loss active adult lifestyle. Sometimes it resembles the likewise leafless parasitic Lovevine.
Close examination of the small flowers shows them to be Milkweed-ish, that is, having the pollen clumped into packages known as pollinia. Packaged pollen transfers thousands of grains in a single pollination event. Not many plants achieve this – with Orchids and Milkweeds (defined broadly) being prominent examples.
The tornado-shaped blossoms have partial barricades at the throat, limiting penetration to the “right” pollinators, whatever they may be. Butterflies? Inquiring minds need to know. Bees and wasps are the only reported pollinators of Cynanchum species known to us, but it is a large genus, and the reports are few and Afro-centric. We prefer butterflies as the prime suspects for those “witch’s hat” flowers, but the truth remains to be seen.
We are dealing with an important insect nursery plant. The larval guests include the Faithful Beauty Butterfly, first described in Cuba. Note the species name Composia fidelissima, which predates Fidel Castro, and probably refers to the loyalty of the caterpillar to its vine. Also in the picture, with details unclear, are the Queen Butterfly and other members of the Monarch Group (subfamily), which become toxic from their youthful escapades on Cynanchum scoparium.
The “Giant Milkweed Bug” (Sephina gundlachi) too enjoys today’s vine as its sole breeding host. Weirdly enough, the mama bug oviposits onto the host plant rather than directly onto the vine. The bug’s warning coloration is much the same as the Monarch Butterfly and its kin. This is a possible example of Mullerian Mimicry in which two different noxious creatures mimic each other, reinforcing the effect of their “bug off” (aposematic, if you will) coloration, much like the black leather, studs, chains and insignia of unrelated motorcycle gangs.
Mullerian Mimic
The double pods split open to release “parachute” seeds, as in most “Milkweeds.” (This post is a collaborative effort by John Bradford, Billy Cunningham, and George Rogers exploring the eastern shore of Lake Okeechobee. JB shot the pictures, except for the badass.)
Swamp Dogwood at the Dump
Swamp Dogwood
Cornus foemina
Cornaceae
With Billy still in North Carolina, John and George changed venues from the east shore of Lake Okeechobee to the east shore of the Palm Beach County Solid Waste Authority. Seriously, take a hike at the dump!
Scenic Lake Altman at the Landfill, No Fishing, Waste-to-Energy Plant in the distance. Photo by GR.
The flora and critters there are diverse and interesting, so picking a featured species was controversial. The Swamp Dogwood was in full bloom, making it necessary to address the question of why Dogwood is called Dogwood. Now, if you believe what you find on Google, it comes from “dag” wood, because the wood made “daggers,” or cattle prods. That is credible because the wood is hard, tough, and pretty. George carves archery bows, and made one of a stave of Pacific Dogwood. Took months, and yielded a beautiful bow, which snapped in a brittle moment, perhaps a victim of Anthracnose? (See below.) The wood has served for tennis racquets and heads of golf clubs. George worked long ago as a commercial loom operator and owns (but can’t find) an antique dogwood loom shuttle tough as nails.
Cornus foemina by JB
Dogwoods are examples of the once-continuous forest around the northern hemisphere, broken up over the eons by climate and environmental change leaving pockets of floristic similarity especially in eastern Asian and in the eastern U.S. with additional remnants in Europe and occasionally along the U.S. Pacific Coast. Dogwoods inhabit all of those places. Four species are native to Florida, only one in our area.
The genus Cornus has about 60 species. Perhaps the most famous and showiest is the Flowering Dogwood, Cornus florida, which does occur in Florida. This gorgeous species and others suffer from an introduced destructive fungal “Dogwood Anthracnose” disease. The disease appeared first in the Pacific and in the Northeast in the 70s and early 80s. By the early 90s, Dogwoods in some areas were devastated. So far—as far as we know—the fungus has spared Florida.
Here is a little trick to identify Dogwoods in the field. First of all, most species have opposite leaves with beautiful curved veins. Snap a leaf and gently pull the two pieces apart. In Dogwoods thin threads will cross the gap and bind the two halves together.
Today’s species, Swamp Dogwood, has white starry flowers in showy clustered, followed by more or less blue “berries” (drupes) not fit for human consumption but is food for the birds and wildlife. (This post is a collaborative effort by John Bradford and George Rogers.)
Devil’s Claw Will Gitcha!
Devil’s Claw
Pisonia aculeata
Nyctaginaceae
Here’s a trivia question for flower-buffs: What do Devil’s Claw Vines in the forest, Bougainvilleas at the hotel, Four O’Clocks in the garden, Blollies on the dunes, Beach-Peanuts on the sand, and Red Spiderlings in the rough have in common?
You guessed it—they are all members of the Nyctaginaceae family. And that gem underscores the importance of learning plants by families, not just one at a time. If you know some of these species, do you see the family resemblance? The Devils Claw leaves and branching pattern look like Bougainvillea. A lot of Nyctaginaceae have colorful bright reddish-purplish pigments—Bougainvillea, Four O’Clock, Beach-Peanut, Red Spiderling, even the Blolly fruit. The colorful “flowers” have no petals. The colorful parts are bracts, that is, modified leaves associated with the flowers. There are also sepals, and the fused sepals can make a tube, this often tightly enclosing the one-seeded fruit.
In today’s plant as the sepals enclosing the fruit have odd rows of protruding glands to help the fruit cling to passing animals. They are are gummy-sticky.
Recurved claws
The name Devil’s Claw comes from scary back-curved spines. We know the pain from recent ankle-bleeding experience. But why have curved spines for self-defense when straight bayonets are more to the point? Perhaps reverse-curvation helps the vine cling to its host trees. Hurricane country, after all. Under ideal conditions, Devil’s Claw can graduate from its lowly clinging vine status to full-blown treehood.
The plants are either male or female, that is, they are dioecious, and the male and female flowers differ. The male flowers are bowl-shaped and yellowish; the females are narrower, more constricted, with a comical brushy stigma resembling the tuft on Jeff Dunham’s friend Peanut. (Huh? Just Google Image it.)
Male flowers
Devil’s Claw occurs throughout much of the American Tropics, including South Florida, and now extends around most of the warm-climate world, no doubt due to artificial introductions. (This post is a collaborative effort by John Bradford and George Rogers on the east shore of Lake Okeechobee. JB took today’s pictures.)
John Bradford
George Rogers
George Rogers
Dee Staley
