Florida Fishpoison Tree

 Piscidia piscupula, the Florida fish poison tree, Jamaica dogwood, or fishfuddle tree, is a tropical hardwood native to south Florida and the Keys, the West Indies, Bahamas, and parts of Central America and Mexico. It is semi-deciduous, ie - shedding its leaves quickly, remaining bare only for a short time  before pushing out new growth. Flowers appear on bare or nearly bare stalks. It hit its flowering peak in the last week of May, and first week of June this year. 

Piscidia piscipula in bloom; 
edge of Johnson Bay, Isles of Capri, FL

The name "Jamaica dogwood" refers to its use in boat building. South Florida naturalist Roger Hammer reports that "dogs" are spikes or bars used as fasteners in ship construction. The flowers certainly don't look anything like the dogwoods most North Americans know. The wood is very  hard and apart from boats, is used for wood carving, fence posts and charcoal. 

Flowers

Typical "pea" flowers are borne in elongated clusters (racemes), and appear before, and sometimes overlapping with the year's new growth. Under magnification, they are hairy, especially the cup-like calyx, which appears to be a soft grayed lavender, like a mole's skin, due to the tiny hairs. Parts of the flower itself also bear silky hairs that are pressed flat on their surface. Flower color can vary quite a bit, from white tinged with pink or lavender, to red, to muddy gray. Like other members in the family, they attract a lot of pollinators, especially bees.

The bark and leaves contain rotenone, among other chemicals, and when tossed in the water, stun small fish, which float to the surface and can be harvested, hence the name "fishpoison." This practice is illegal in Florida, though we've reached such a state of general ignorance that I doubt anybody under 60 even knows the trick. 

Rotenone supposedly doesn't harm warm-blooded animals, but the plant contains plenty of other substances that do. Dried root bark is used  both internally and externally in folk medicine to relieve pain and insomnia to the point of unconsciousness, and to treat nervous disorders and skin ailments, but the plant's toxic/medicinal potential remains largely uninvestigated. Dried extract is available on the Internet, but I don't plan to play lab rat myself! For one thing, there seem to be no generally accepted dosage guidelines, but plenty of warnings.

The tree, which can reach 30-50 feet tall, with a broad, spreading crown, can make a striking specimen where it is not crowded. In shade and  competition from other plants it stays pretty spindly and unimpressive.  Osorio calls it "underutilized" in the Florida landscape. A sucking insect, the Jamaica Dogwood Psylla, occasionally can make the leaves unsightly, but again, acccording to Roger Hammer, doesn't make it undesirable in the landscape. It is highly drought tolerant once established, and grows behind the dune line on beaches, and in sand, rocky or gravelly soil elsewhere. Rather than falling over in storms, it tends to lose branches. 

Multi-trunked specimen,
Parking Lot, Collier-Seminole State Park
Collier County, FL

What first may appear to be leaves are actually leaflets. Like other members of the family, the fishpoison tree has compound leaves. They alternate along the branch, and typically have 4-8 pairs of leaflets plus a single terminal leaflet. The leaflets can vary in shape from more or less oblong to more oval, and the tips can be blunt, rounded or even pointed. They are fairly leathery on  top, and hairs  can give the underside a velvety feel. The leaves appear near the end of the flowering period. Leaves and individiual leaflets in the subfamily Faboidae, to which Piscidia piscipula belongs, are characterized by a swollen structure where they join the petiole or stem, called the "pulvinus." The leaves are a dark, matte green on top, and a lighter, softer shade on the underside. Varying pressure levels within the pulvinus cause the leaves and leaflets to fold up, seemingly at nighttime, but studies have shown that this is a biological rhythm not triggered by light levels. 

Piscidia
3 Mature Leaves; 3 Emerging Leaves

Members of Faboideae also are associated with the famous "nitrogen-fixing" bacteria, varioius species of Rhizobium. These symbiotic soil organisms "infect" root hairs of certain plants, especially members of Faboideae, where they transform atmospheric nitrogen into an ammonium form that can be used by the plant to produce plant protein. In turn, the bacteria gain carbohydrates from the host plant. Usually each Rhizobium species is limited to a single host species. Such complexity is probably one reason supposed "restoration" projects may fail, for replanting alone is a pretty simplistic approach. 

Black seeds are borne in a papery winged structure that passes from pink, green, yellow to brown. The tree apparently will grow readily from seed, as well as cuttings, so readily, in fact, that limbs used for fence posts make take root!

Seed Pods

The native Cassius Blue butterfly and the black and silver Hammock Skipper use the leaves as larval hosts. 

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I have relied heavily on the following sources for this article:

Roger Hammer. Florida Keys Wildflowers. Falcon. 2004. p.177. Email conversation.

Rufino Osorio. A Gardener's Guide to Florida Native Plants. University Press of Florida. 2001. pp. 265-6.

J. Paul Scurlock. Native Trees & Shrubs of the Florida Keys. Laurel Press. 1987, p. 123.

Wendy B. Zomlefer. Guide to Flowering Plant Families. University of North Carolina Press. 1994. pp. 160-166.

Twisted-Banded Airplant

 The twisted-banded airplants (Tillandsia flexuosa Sw.) in our yard bloomed most of the summer, and are producing seeds now. This "airplant" is neither rare nor common in Florida, though I suspect loss of habitat is making in more infrequent. It ranges as far north as central Florida, and southward through the Caribbean, parts of Mexico and Central America, Columbia, Venezuela, and the Guianas. It also is a plant of the lowlands, staying from sea level to about 400 meters in elevation. It is quite salt tolerant, thriving in our yard only a few bits  of barrier islands away from the Gulf of Mexico. Some of the plants mounted on small trees got blown 90 -180 degrees off their axes during Hurricane Irma in 2017, but they gradually grew back toward the light. 

Tillandsia flexuosa and pup

The typical plant could be described as "loosely wrapped," with around 10 -15 stiff, leathery leaves arranged in a loose spiral. After the plant has produced seeds it eventually falls apart. The size and appearance of Tillandsia flexuosa vary dramatically, depending on where the plants are growing. The specimens growing in the harsh scrub of the Naples Preserve or Rookery Bay's upland areas are gray/silver, sometimes with tinges of crimson, with darker gray horizontal bands. 

Young T. flexuosa in Naples Preserve

Those living in more shade are progressively a greener gray/almost white, with darker green horizontal bands. The leaves may recurve rather dramatically or remain more upright. I have observed the greatest degree of recurving in plants in fairly deep shade, and suspect it is the plant's way of seeking more light. The plant produces pups, and over time will form a small colony. Given the behavior of the plants in our yard, it germinates fairly easily as well.

T. flexuosa seedlings on Fiddlewood

Do you see the anole?

The inflorescence, which can grow up to a meter tall, is branched, with flowers on alternate sides of the branches. Each branch ends in a pair of bracts, one  normal-sized and one much smaller and sterile.  The bracts and flowers grow at fairly wide angles to the branches - often near 90 degrees, which gives a slightly zig-zag appearance. I imagine that this, and the slight curvature of the areas between the bracts gives the branch greater strength and stability, since the process of flowering and seed production is fairly long. 

Inflorescence

The flowers are a deep, warm pink, and open over a long period, so the plant produces points of intense color, rather than a large display. Once the seeds have dispersed the insides of the bracts reveal themselves to be a deep, rich maroon, which also is attractive. A flower arranger probably would love the dried inflorescences. 

A non-local variety of the plant is viviparous, meaning that the seed germinates in the fruit before the fruit is detached. The mangrove "pencil" is a good example of vivipary. I have noticed seedlings on the dried branches of the inflorescence, and assumed that they had fallen and been trapped by residual fibers, but obviously I need to observe my plants much more closely next year.  The photo below shows somewhat out-of-focus green seedlings on the right of the inflorescence.

 

My first plants came from a legal rescue in the Panther Reserve, just north of the Fakahatchee Slough. Several large trees had been felled to make room for a greenhouse for native orchids, and I and fellow members of a botanical identification course visiting for the day were welcomed to harvest the epiphytes. (The trees were going to the shredder). Since then, I've become an active parking-lot stalker, especially where there are old live oak trees. Usually the fallen epiphytes are the ubiquitous ball moss (T. recurvata L) and wisps of Spanish moss(T. usneoides L), but I've found a fair number of the twisted-banded airplants as well. I haven't found that many lately, so maybe the supply has been exhausted.

I occasionally find pot-belly airplants (T. paucifolia Baker)  and Southern needleleaf (T. setaceae Sw) on or under declining shrubs. I don't take any from a healthy host, but if the shrub is definitely headed for the shredder, I will break off dead branchlets and the airplants. I stopped picking once, because I felt greedy, only to notice the next week that all the plants had been uprooted and replaced, so I won't have as many scruples now when it comes to harvesting from dying shrubs in parking lots. 

Our plants thrive in the shade and branches  of a Fiddlewood. It never has flourished, and I fear it eventually will die, but in the meantime it provides a perfect habitat for the Tillandsias and other epiphytes.

For more on Spanish Moss, see my post on April 12, 2019, "Southern Gothic - Spanish Moss."

See also "Parking Lot Potbelly." Feb. 27, 2019.

Mahogany/Mahagony

 

Yet another Florida native plant that people know and don't know from parking lots is the Florida, or West Indian Mahogany, Swietenia mahagoni. I've always been puzzled by the discrepancy between the common name, mahogany, and the species epithet mahagoni. There must be an explanation, linguistic or otherwise, but I haven't found it yet, and I always forget which is which). 

I 've concluded that people are pretty blind to plants beyond vague perceptions of their presence. So while residents and tourists alike "see" many mahoganies in southern Florida, they really aren't aware of them. Besides, the trees they do encounter are generally mangled by storms, bad pruning, or both.

Typical Wind-Damaged Mahogany

But they can't help but notice when sometime in mid-to-late April the tree drops all its leaves, seemingly overnight. Then, the bare asphalt of parking lots is transformed into a sea of light brown leaflets, which form piles and swirls, ankle deep where they collect against curbing. 

You don't want to park under a mahogany tree this time of year, because the remaining fruits, hard and woody somewhat pear-shaped capsules, also drop. Kids call them "mahogany nuts," and the the less civilized in that age group find them great missiles for attacking each other, cars and mailboxes. 

Mahogany Capsule, Seed, and Cross Section

 

When the fruits hit the ground they break apart into segments, which make for bumpy, uncomfortable driving. I don't know whether they actually damage tires, but they can't do them any good, either. So after the leaf drop, you slide around on the leaflets and crunch over the pods until the leaf-blowing crew returns.

Not Much Fun for Drivers

A plant with this behavior is called "semi-deciduous," which is a new one for me. I always thought that a tree was deciduous or not, but it's more complicated. It turns out that "semi-deciduous" trees do shed all their leaves, but only for a brief period before new growth begins. So unlike hickories, many oaks, and other more northern trees, which are bare for months, semi-deciduous trees are leafless for only a brief time. Many of Florida's tropical hammock trees show this behavior. The late spring shed makes sense, considering that the rainy season is just around the corner. 

While mahoganies are very strong, and rarely toppled by windstorms, their habit of putting out branches at acute angles to the trunk makes them vulnerable to limb splitting. In their natural habitat they  had to push through to the top of the canopy, so perhaps didn't develop these weak joints so typical of cultivated specimens.  (A fascinating video, Chief Chekika's Not So Secret Island Hideaway in the Everglades, has footage of hammock mahoganies which tends to bear out my theory. See http://kayakfari.wordpress.com for the video).

Weak Joints on Mahogany Tree

Most of the planted mahoganies around here are still upright, but pretty mangled. They certainly don't have the elegant, rounded canopy that they should. Parking-lot and street trees suffer further indignities of having to exist in only a limited soil area, with asphalt or concrete covering what normally would the spread of the roots. They alternately gasp for moisture during dry seasons and nearly drown in wet seasons. The fact that they persist at all shows just how hard it is to kill plants in south Florida. 

Swietenia mahagoni, the "Florida," or "West Indian" mahogany, once grew in abundant stands in Florida, the West Indies, Cuba, Jamaica, the Bahamas and Hispaniola, but over-harvesting has made it rare in nature. As early as 1775, a book by Bernard Romans, A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida, noted about mahogany that, "little or none now remains here." (Cited by Florida Mahogany Project)*. The plant in the wild is considered "threatened and endangered" in Florida, and harvesting is illegal, though bits salvaged from storm-damaged trees may be sold. It also is illegal to import endangered Amazon mahogany, but apparently tons of it still get through into the US. Various species of Swietenia grow well in plantations, but it is said that the wood of cultivated trees does not have the rich red coloration of native specimens. 

Mahogany was valued highly for ship building, not only for its durability, but especially because it did not splinter. In the era of wooden ships, flying splinters were as lethal to sailors as cannon shot itself. The beauty of mahogany's deep red wood also made it ideal for fine furniture and interior ornamentation. 

Young trees have reddish bark, while the bark of older trees is greyer and more fissured. Flowers are inconspicuous, and supposedly  fragrant. I've never seen one, since they are high up on the tree. (I'll have to start looking for some young trees)! 

Mahoganies may not be suitable for small yards because of their potentially large size and aggressive lateral root system, but in the right situation, they are majestic, up to 60 feet tall, with a large, rounded crown. Some people think they are messy because of their annual leaf drop, but then some people evidently don't have enough to worry about. 

Because mahoganies have somewhat fern-like leaves - in botanical language, pinnately-compound leaves -  they cast dappled, not deep, shade. What looks like a leaf is actually a leaflet, and a complete mahogany leaf has 5-8 pairs of paired leaflets. The leaf itself is 4 - 10 inches long, with leaflets 2 - 2- and-a-half inches long and a half-inch to a little over and inch wide. New growth is purplish-pink, turning to spring green, and then throughout the summer assumes a deeper green. Leaflets are elliptical to lance-shaped, with asymmetrical bases, and slightly pointed tips. They are smooth and shiny on top, and slightly duller underneath. 

3 Young Mahogany Leaves 
Somewhat Atypical in number of Leaflet Pairs

The fruit is a woody capsule, slightly pear-shaped, 3-5 inches long, and around 3 inches wide at the base. It is held on a stalk, and when ripe, splits from the base upward. Inside, winged seeds are pressed tightly together around a central column. An opened capsule still containing its seeds is beautiful. Some people varnish them to keep them intact.

Opened Capsule Showing Seeds;
Central Column Removed

An ironic twist to the mahogany story is that while it is threatened in habitat, the Florida Native Plant Society reports that there are instances when it can become invasive outside its natural range. 

More information on the Florida Mahogany Project and be found on its Facebook page, and in an article on the website http//www.Floridajourneys.com.

Simpson's Stopper

 Simpson's stopper, Myrcianthes fragrans, generally grows as a shrub or small tree up to 25 feet tall.  It is vary variable in form, and also can be pruned into any shape desired. It's formally pruned in many parking lot hedges, which is kind of too bad, since the constant whacking back vastly reduces flowering and fruiting. So even though many people in South Florida see it regularly, they don't notice it. On the other hand, the resulting dense growth produces a good nesting place for mockingbirds. 

 The Simpson's stopper in the front yard could be healthier, which is worrisome.  It's one of my very favorite plants, and it plays a vital ecological and esthetic role in our yard. Anchoring the front landscape design (such as it is), is not the least of its virtues. If it goes, it will leave a big hole. 

It started out as a multi-trunked containerized plant. I liked the outward spread of the trunks, so I left them. As it grew, I removed lower branches, partly because they were intruding on the path. The open, tiered canopy that developed is one of the plant's charms now. I just wish it were a bit fuller. "Limbing" it up also reveals the gorgeous bark, sometimes a perfectly smooth pale tan, as though it were sanded, and at other times turning reddish and peeling, a little like a crepe myrtle. The smooth bark phase is likely the source of one common name, "naked-wood."

Removing lower limbs also keeps the landscape more open and less-congested. It makes a nice screen between us and our neighbors to the left, but it isn't so dense that I can't see through it to their magnificent large Opuntias or the houses across the street.  No matter what your viewpoint is, you can see through and beyond the plant, so you are tempted to explore further. One of these days I am going to relocate one of my waterlilly pots so that birds can flit down for a drink or bath, and then retreat into the protective shade of the stopper.

The plant is evergreen, with opposite, mostly ovate leaves about 1 to 8 cm long,  and 1 to 4 cm wide. They are tough and leathery, with slightly underturned margins to reduce water loss. Depending on sun exposure, the leaves range from bright yellow-green to dark olive. The underside is a paler green. The leaves are covered with small glands, which appear as bumps on the upper side and as black or green dots on the underside.  I've never noticed any fragrance emanating from the leaves like it does from firs or spruces. Crushing the leaves, though, releases a fresh minty aroma something like eucalyptus oil. That's not surprising, since both are members of the Myrtle family, Myrtaceae.

In contrast with the leaves, the flowers really live up to their species epithet,  fragrans.  The plant blooms and fruits several times a year, depending on rainfall and temperature. When Simpson's stopper is in flower the air around it is filled with a spicy sweetness somewhere between the heavy, almost cloying odor of gardenias and the light, fleeting sweetness of citrus. When it is flowering I visit it several times a day, especially in late afternoon or early evening, just to breath deeply, as though I somehow could capture an olfactory  memory. Who needs mind-altering drugs when it is possible to wallow in pure sensation just by standing near a fragrant shrub and inhaling?

The all-white flowers grow in clusters on stalks that arise in the angle between leaf and stem. I think normally there are 5 tiny petals, though the one in my sketch above has 4. The numerous fine white stamens provide the main attraction, though. They practically obscure the petals, and a Simpson's stopper in full bloom looks like  the fairy godmother has waved her sparkle-trailing magic wand over it. The flowers are constantly humming with various pollinators, including beetles. Butterflies don't seem particularly fond of them, though. 

Flowers give way to rounded or somewhat pear-shaped fruits, often borne in pairs  - hence another common name, "twinberry stopper." They eventually reach a size somewhere between a blueberry and small olive, starting out green, then passing through yellow and orange stages before their final bright red. Mockingbirds gorge on the fruits, and if they happen to be frequenting the yard at the time, bluejays and cardinals also gobble the berries. The fruits are edible, somewhat sweet and not too dry, but for me leave an unpleasant bitter aftertaste. Volunteers pop up around the yard, evidence of the bird's activities. The plant also suckers, and probably could be propagated by severing them, too.

Apart from its other virtues, the Simpson's stopper functions as a kind of activity center in the yard. Even when they aren't feeding, birds like to perch on its branches. One July morning I made notes of what was going on around me while I sketched the fruits. I sat quietly enough that a mockingbird that had been flushed by my initial setup returned to the opposite side of the plant to continue eating. A shiny June beetle had its head stuck into a fruit, so intent on gorging that it let me manipulate foliage around it to make a photo. You can see a bit of my finger at the top of the photo.

Small bees and wasps buzzed amid the foliage and remaining flowers. Two other species of beetles were devouring fruits. Two strange insects that I couldn't ID were mating in the shrub's interior. A green darner dragonfly reconnoitered in search of prey or just patrolling its territory.  

I am wearing out the phrase, "superlative native plant," but that is because so many Florida native plants are, indeed, superlative. From its undemanding nature, repeated flowering and fruiting, glossy evergreen foliage, wildlife and landscaping value, Simpson's stopper certainly qualifies. It needs little water or fertilizer after it is established, and ours has survived major hurricanes Wilma and Irma with minimal damage. Though it gets pretty well defoliated by the salt-laden wind, it recovers quickly. 

It is named in honor of Charles Torrey Simpson (1846-1932), a noted South Florida plant explorer, snail expert, naturalist and nature writer. True stoppers are in the genus Eugenia, which also is in the Myrtle family. Simpson's stopper resembles them superficially, hence the most common common name.

Florida Elephant's Foot

I've been remiss in keeping my nature notes this year. The first reference to Florida elephant's foot (Elephantopus elatus Bertol.) in our yard is a sketch done on July 30th, but it already had been blooming so long that I was afraid it was now or never in terms of drawing it. My notes from 2019 mention it around the end of June, which is not to say that it wasn't flowering before then. It's late August now, and the flowering is still going strong.

Florida Elephant's Foot - Individual Florets at Bottom Right

The foliage is much grayer and hairier than depicted.

Unspectacular, even slightly ungainly, Florida elephant's foot belongs to that class of plants delightful mainly to the observant eye, for it easily gets lost in a crowd. A flat rosette of coarse leaves wider at the tips than at their bases sends up grayish, wiry branching stalks which can reach up to 3 feet tall according to the books. Mine are closer to 18-24 inches. Each branchlet (in botany language a pedicel)  ends in a pyramidal structure composed of 3 overlapping bracts packed with individual disk florets. Florets are a delicate pale lavender-pink. The florets in any given head open  somewhat sequentially, not all at once, so the effect is subtle, hardly spectacular. 

Florida Elephant's Foot - Habit

                                                

The gray-green clusters and delicate florets seeming to hover untethered over lower-growing plants, or  among grasses, give the scene a wonderfully airy and ephemeral effect. My plant is being supported by the grassy leaves of spiderwort ( Tradescantia ohiensis). Spiderwort isn't native to this part of Florida, but does pretty well - in fact, too well at times. I will have to thin this batch to keep it from overshadowing and outcompeting the elephant's foot. I suppose elephant's foot would have to be staked in a more formal garden, but loosely, so as not to destroy its peculiar charm.

There are 4 species of Elephantopus native to Florida, but elatus, the "tall elephant's foot," is the only one that occurs in SW Florida. This species is found in throughout most of Florida and parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. In Florida its status is "Threatened." It can take rather dry to reasonably moist situations, and is commonly found in pine flatwoods.The Florida Native Plant Society lists it as a "short-lived perennial." 

Though it is quite drought-hardy, and used to sandy soils, I find that the plant does better in our hot yard with a little moisture and shade. I don't need to water it in its present place where it gets runoff from the eaves and protection from the afternoon sun, but the ones I planted elsewhere, in full unabated sunlight, died out. 

A Head and Ray Florets
(I've rotated this photo several times and still can't figure out which end is up)

Over time, Florida elephant's foot will form clumps, like many plants in the Aster Family. It also grows from seed. In our yard it goes dormant in the dry season, disappearing entirely until the rains resume.

Though it works wonderfully blended with other plants, a large plot of Elephantopus alone in bloom is quite and quietly spectacular. When he was still in high school my much younger brother tilled up a section near the woods to grow corn. The raccoons got most of the corn, but there obviously was a dormant seedbank for elephant's foot, because it flourished in that spot thereafter. More than 40-50 years later, there are still scattered plants there in spite of repeated disturbance. In fact, the plant in our yard is a descendent of these north-Florida individuals.

Colony of Elephant's Foot  under Serenoa repens
Naples Preserve

Florida elephant's foot doesn't seem overly attractive to butterflies, but is very popular with wasps and bees. The photo below shows what I believe to be a spider wasp nectaring. Spider wasps paralyze spiders and inter them as food for their larvae. They can manipulate a spider far larger than they are themselves. Though they can sting, they usually aren't aggressive. This one didn't mind my getting up close. 

Florida elephant's foot is so named because from overhead, the outline of the basal rosette supposedly resembles the footprint of an elephant. That takes some imagination. For one thing, the elephant would have to have toes  all around its foot, not just in the front. 

A garden full of divas would be pretty jarring and incoherent. It needs a complement of modest and unassuming plants like Florida elephant's foot to furnish the backdrop so the stars can shine.

Spanish Stopper

June has come and gone, and I can't say where it went. The first half of the month was very wet, and the second half was unusually hot, with heat indices hitting 3 digits by 9 AM. Salt-water mosquitoes also were abundant, but I try not to complain about them because they are so important in the food chain. Probably not so coincidentally, we had lots of dragonflies too.

The yard just erupted with flowers, butterflies, new growth and new weeds. I'm hoping for cooler temperatures so l can restore some order there as well as resume outdoor sketching. Instead of trying to catch up, I am just going to jump in where we are now, with Spanish Stopper in full bloom. This year's flush is probably the best we've ever had, so I'm hoping for a lot of berries.

Delicate, Ephemeral Flowers of Spanish Stopper

Spanish Stopper (Eugenia foetida) is a shrub or small tree to about 20 feet tall in the Myrtle family. It is native to southern Florida, somewhat farther north along the state's east coast, the West Indies, Bahamas, and Central America. Despite its name it does not have a fetid odor, in or out of bloom.  Some sources claim the flowers of Spanish stopper smell unpleasant, but I can detect only a faint odor, and it's not at all unpleasant. The same goes for crushed leaves. Pruning cuts do stink for a few hours.

Eugenia foetida, habit

So I either have an outlier, or the species name foetida is a misnomer. The stink honor goes to the white stopper (Eugenia axillaris), whose leaves emit a pronounced skunky odor, which is picked up and transported by the breeze. Oddly enough, your neighbor down the street is more likely to notice it than you would standing right by the plant.

Spanish stopper has a very upright, rather than outward-spreading form, so it is good for small or tight spaces. The leaf posture accents this impression, because the leaves often are held upright, with the lower ones overlapping those higher. You may see more leaf undersides than topsides because of this ascending habit. In "botanese" the leaves are "obovate," which means that the bases are quite narrow while the tips are broad and rounded. Spanish stopper is the only one of our native stoppers whose leaves do not come to a sharp point at their tip.

Leaves are opposite, have quite short petioles, and smooth margins. Veins are not very noticeable, with only the midrib prominent on the underside. The leathery leaves are dark green on the top side, and a lighter, somewhat gray-green on the underside.

The bark is gray to brownish-gray, with newer twigs somewhat rusty in color. It is not deeply fissured, but the closely-spaced leaf scars make good "hold-fasts" for lichens and bromeliads.

Flowers appear in the angles between branches. Up close the small blooms are spectacular, with 4 white petals and numerous long stamens. At first glance they appear to be stuck directly to the branches, but if you look closer you'll see that they grow from tiny stems. The buds resemble miniature golf balls set on tees. The flowers do not last long, and the blooming season is  short. In only one or two days, the ephemeral white flowers are already shriveling. But if you are lucky enough to catch it at the right time, a Spanish stopper in full bloom, with masses of delicate snowy white flowers wreathing the stems, is truly beautiful. The fruits are globular, turning black when ripe, and are attractive to birds.

Spanish Stopper Flowers

Though our stopper is putting on its quiet show now, blooms actually may appear throughout the year. Blooming may be triggered by rain after a dry spell, or warmer weather after a cold snap.

Spanish stopper is a pioneer hammock plant, and well-suited to Florida's highly alkaline soils. Once established it is absolutely bullet-proof. I rarely water ours, and it never has shown any signs of insect or disease infestation. Though it isn't spectacular, it does have its place in the landscape as a trouble- free evergreen with wildlife appeal. It can be pruned to any shape or height desired.

Like its relatives, it derives its name from accounts that a tea made from its leaves or berries effectively treated diarrhea.

Clean Sweep

I've never managed to keep a  neat garden, and neighbors and walkers tell me they like my flowers. Still, I worry that the subtext is, "Your yard is an unholy mess, but at least it's colorful." Finally, old age, an arm injury still lingering after cleaning up after Irma in 2017, and my general sleaze coalesced into the proverbial "perfect storm" landscape-wise, and I had to hire somebody to clear-cut the mess.

Chaos is the Opposite of a Garden

Phyla nodiflora, "Fogfruit," makes a wonderful flowering natvie ground cover that attracts many pollinators, the lovely white peacock butterfly included. It was invading the driveway, and  had crept, kudzu-like, over a stack of paving blocks, 6 bags of mulch, and a patch of wickedly spiny agave, itself out of control even though I had been attacking it regularly.

Phyla nodiflora - Good Pollinator Plant

Sea purslane, Sesuvium portulacastrum, another desirable native ground cover,  was smothering a pot of lotus and a nice patch of Heliotropium amplexicaule. It also presented a bad tripping hazard for anybody brave enough to make a foray into the "jungle." Thickets of scorpion-tail, scattered scarlet sage, and blue porterweed competed for light. Swaths of gaillardias and mounds of dune sunflower were flopping over onto the neighbor's driveway. The gravel swale, where I had nourished the fond idea of creating a meadow of blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium angustifolium), was instead a mess of moisture-loving opportunists. A dead palm tree and deformed Red Geiger, both courtesy of Hurricane Irma, completed the picture of utter surrender.

Even the rosiest of glasses couldn't mask the reality. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and I called a garden center to restore the bare bones of  the landscape. Two truckloads of debris and over a hundred bags of mulch later, we have one of the neatest and most cared-for yard on the street, which has its pluses, but is not exactly my ideal garden.

New Look for the Front Yard

Although the yard hardly is bare, the new space comes with a cost beyond what the garden center charged. For years our yard has been one of the very few landscapes in our neighborhood to offer  significant amenities of pesticide-free shelter, food and water for animals. Now in its rather barren state those amenities, especially the shelter, are much-reduced.

 However, we do not want to return to what it had become, which was by no means a garden. One thing I have learned is that the garden is as much about space as it is about plants. Without space,  there is no focal point, no rest for the eye or the soul. If the garden is neither  pleasant for walking or viewing, it is a failure, regardless of the beauty of individual plants. The very word "garden" signals the imposition of some kind of order. A  "wild garden" is a contradiction in terms.

So now, I have to recreate some of the lost habitat without losing the harmony of the space. As the old plants begin to resurface through the mulch, I have to organize them into well-defined beds, augmented perhaps with potted specimens. The self-discipline to pull out the surplus will be hard for me to maintain, but if I don't, the mess will re-establish itself quickly. That should provide motivation enough, because the yard really had become horrible and impassable.

Pots for Color

Given the fact that the yard is so small, I also need to ensure that the majority of the plants do more than one job. The agaves don't exactly fit that requirement, though dragonflies like to perch on their upright leaves, and pollinators love the flowers when they appear finally. But we both love the sculptural quality of the plants. A Red Geiger volunteer seedling will fill the space left by the agaves, and all will have enough room for the next several years. Though not a native, the Geiger will be a multi-purpose asset, and deserves its own post.

Wish me luck!

Gopher Apple - Licania michauxii

Gopher apple, Licania michauxii, is in full bloom now. Licania is a genus in the coco plum family (Chrysobalanaceae), which once was included in the rose family because the flowers and fruit are so similar. Maybe one day a "lumper" will put the two together again. Who knows?

It is an incredibly tough plant, forming colonies in the deep sand of sandhills, pinelands and scrub. It is  impossible to transplant, given the fact that it grows from an underground stem. The plants in a colony are probably genetically identical. It also will grow from seed. My colonies started from a couple of small plants I bought at a Florida Native Plant Society sale.

Underground Stem- Horizontal Lines=Ground Level

Rufino Osorio describes its growth habit as similar "to that of a large subterranean woody shrub with only its branch tips growing out of the ground." This underground stem allows the plant to withstand extreme drought, unmitigated sunshine, and fires. *

Gopher Apple in Sand at Naples Preserve

Apart from its role in stabilizing fine "sugar" sands, gopher apple is a valuable food source for animals like the gopher tortoise, raccoons, and opossums. I don't have these animals visiting my suburban yard (now and again a raccoon) as far as I know, but birds do peck at the fruit. The fruit, green when young, matures into a beautiful rosy pink. It has a single large seed, like its former cousins cherries and plums. The fruit is edible, but I find it dry and tasteless.

Licania michauxii Fruit, Flowers

The flower panicles, which occur at the ends of the branches remind me of snowcones. Flowers have 5 petals and 15 stamens, which are attached to the petals. Flowers are a creamy white with a deep yellow-orange throat. They also are a little fuzzy. They attract numerous pollinators, including butterflies.

Flowers

Leaves are opposite, and may vary wildly in size. They are a bright yellow-green when unstressed, leathery, and have a slightly uneven margin. During the dry season in habitat they turn very yellow, and may even wither as in the second photograph. They are a favorite of the alfalfa bee, Megachile sp., which cuts out sections of the leaves to build its underground egg chambers.

Licania recently visited by Megachile

Licania michauxii occurs in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi. It makes a very tough, basically trouble-free groundcover, and is especially attractive in bloom. It is not take foot traffic, however. I have to weed a little occasionally, especially since the gopher apple is in the area of my yard invaded by torpedo grass. Otherwise, the only maintenance I do is cutting it back periodically to keep it contained.

Gopher Apple in Bloom

*Rufino Osorio. A Gardener's Guide to Florida's Native Plants. University Press of Florida. 2001. pp196-197.

Illustrations, article and photos by Jeanette Lee Atkinson.

Coco Plum

More residents and tourists alike in South Florida probably have seen coco plum (Chrysobalanus icaco) more than any other Florida native plant. That's not because it is rampant in nature, but because it is the plant of choice for parking lot hedges more often than not. You don't have to get too far south of Tampa before it starts turning up in every McDonald's, Wendy's, and other fast food emporia, as well as home landscapes. It's too bad in a way that it makes such an excellent hedge, because left untrimmed and uncrowded it can become a very attractive shrub or small tree.

Recently-Planted Hedge Showing Red New Growth 

That it can survive these urban situations and the constant trimming by the mow-and-go gangs says a lot about its toughness. In fact, it occurs naturally in both salty and dry environments like the back of beach sand dunes and in inland swamps.

Chrysobalanaceae is a fairly small family with 400-500 species, and occurs mostly in tropical and subtropical climates. Coco plum is one of 2 species that occurs in the U.S., the other being gopher apple (Licania michauxii). Its range in Florida is limited roughly to frost free areas, or areas that experience below freezing temperatures for only very short times.

The evergreen leaves are mainly obovate ( narrow at base, very rounded at top) or orbicular (nearly circular). Some of the leaves have a slightly pointed tip. Leaves are smooth, tough and leathery. They occur alternately on the branch, with a very upright, even overlapping posture. New growth on the type most commonly seen here is reddish.

Chrysobalanus icaco - Leaf Posture, New Growth

Coco plum produces clusters of flowers in the angles between leaves and stem, and is blooming now. The tiny white flowers are said to be fragrant, but I can't detect a lot of scent from my neighbor's hedge. Perhaps the yard crew trims off too many of the flowers. Depending on the type, the round fruit is either purple or yellowish- white. I have seen a form with  pink fruit in a section of the Rookery Bay Reserve near where I live.

Pink-fruited Form

The fruits are edible. One source describes them as sweet and juicy, but the few I have tried have been pretty bland. Some people make jellies and jams from them. They are an important source of food for wildlife, and were/are important  in the diet of Florida's indigenous peoples. The fruits contain a single seed, which also is edible, and is oily enough to sustain a small flame. Seeds are dispersed via animal droppings or by water, flowing downstream from fresh habitats, or in ocean currents.

Fruits start out green, then turn reddish, and finally reach their full color. According to Dr. Daniel Austin a tea made from the bark or roots has been used to treat dysentery and as a general tonic.

Young Fruits

Younger stems are cinnamon brown with numerous lenticels - raised pithy and porous growths that aid in gas exchange.

Stem with Lenticels and Ripe Fruits

Sources:

Peggy Sias Lantz. Florida's Edible Wild Plants. Seaside Publishing. 2014.
Dr. Daniel Austin. Coastal Dune Plants. Gumbo Limbo Nature Center of Palm Beach County. 1991.
Daniel Austin
Walter Kingsley Taylor. Florida Wildflowers in Their Natural Communities. University Press of Florida. 1998.
Gil Nelson. The Shrubs and Woody Vines of Florida. Pineapple Press. 1996.