Florida Native Plant Society Blog

The Snook Island project, a public/private restoration in Palm Beach County, was dedicated on November 2, 2012.  This project includes, planting mangroves, spartina grass, and other native plants on the shoreline and on islands and jetties built with rubble from the old drawbridge here. Some of it had been left in place after the new bridge was built and had been used for many years as a fishing pier, but it had become unsafe. So instead of transporting the spoils to a landfill, the cement blocks were used to create the substrate for the plantings and as an artificial reef for the new fishing pier. Other niceties included here are the benches, a boardwalk along the mangroves for the birdwatchers, a launch platform for kayaks and canoes, water taxi docking stations, and reconfigured parking for the trailers. So now instead of a rotting cement bridge and an eroding shoreline of the public golf course, the local residents have a beautiful recreational resource...

Figure 1. The threatened Water Sundew (Drosera intermedia). Photo taken by: Noah Elhardt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Drosera_intermedia_ne1.jpg This post is one of a series from Botany professor Nisse Goldberg's students at Jacksonville University. Student author: Keenan Carpenter. Allow me to introduce you to an odd little group of plants of the genus Drosera , otherwise known as the Sundews. The Sundews belong to larger family group Droseraceae which encompasses the rest of the carnivorous/insectivorous plants. There are five species of Sundew found here in Florida: The Pink Sundew ( Drosera capillaris ), the threatened Spoon-Leaved or Water Sundew ( Drosera intermedia ), the Dwarf Sundew ( Drosera brevifolia ) , the Thread-Leaved Sundew ( Drosera filiformis ), and Tracy’s Sundew ( Drosera tracyi ). Figure 2. A common flower form seen among the members of Drosera. Photo taken by: Denis Barthel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DroseraKenneallyiFlora.jpg Sunde...

In Celebration of National Estuaries Day, here's a second look at the projects in the Lake Worth Lagoon: Lake Worth Lagoon What is an estuary? An estuary is a place where freshwater rivers, streams, and canals meet and mix with salty ocean water. This mix of fresh and salt water creates the brackish water unique to coastal estuaries and makes them among the most productive ecosystems in the world.  Plants , such as this cord grass ( Spartina spp ), growing at the water’s edge calm the wave action to provide important habitat. (This is a photo from a north Florida estuary.)  Why are estuaries important? More than 70 percent of Florida's recreationally and commercially important fishes, crustaceans, and shellfish spend part of their lives in estuaries, usually when they are young. Many of these species migrate off shore to spawn or breed. The eggs develop into larvae (immature forms) that are transported into estuaries by tides and currents. The shallow water...

 Austrailian Pine fruits Australian pines seem to be everywhere in the coastal regions in the bottom half of Florida. Their name is deceiving because, while they are native to Australia, they aren't pines or even conifers. They are flowering trees with separate male and female flowers, and what look like needles are really green twiglets with close-set circles of tiny leaves that drop at the first sign of a drought. In the photo to the right, the light-colored lines are where leaves where once attached. Most of the photosynthesis takes place in the twiglets. There are three species of Australian pine ( Casuarina spp ) that have been imported into Florida for various purposes. They were widely planted to soak up the "swamps" in Florida, stabilize canals, and hold beaches. Unfortunately for Florida's ecosystems, the "pines" accomplished all this and more--like seeding prolifically, growing five feet or more per year, producing dense shade, and emitting...

Too many native mangrove stands have been removed from the edges of Florida's waterways over decades of development, and as a result shorelines are more vulnerable to tropical storms and our native bird and fish populations are in steep decline. Mangroves growing in thickets along tropical and sub-tropical shorelines absorb the wave action from open waters, build new land as they slow down and hold onto passing sediment, and create fabulous habitat for many types of wildlife. Many types of birds inhabit mangrove thickets and some of them are endangered or have declining populations. Some examples are roseate spoonbills, limpkins, white ibis, herons, bitterns, anhingas, osprey, peregrine falcons, and bald eagles. Mangroves are so important for the health of the shorelines that Florida has passed regulations to govern their treatment.  We mentioned mangroves last week as one of Florida's important water resources and habitats in We ALL Live in a Watershed! Mangroves as far ...

Hibiscus coccineus is native to Florida's wet places throughout the state. It's a tall herbaceous perennial and dies back to the ground in late fall after its leaves turn a gorgeous pale yellow and fall off. I have purchased several specimens at native plant gatherings and garden fests. They've all done well at the edge of our good-sized pond and have come back larger and with more stalks each year. When I was doing garden fests this spring to sell my book, I'd look for yet another scarlet hibiscus to buy to decorate my vendor's table. Without exception, people stopped to ask about it. Most of the questions sounded something like this, "Is that a legal plant there little darlin'? People wondered about its leaf shape, which resembles marijuana leaves. I always had my Gil Nelson book, "Florida's Best Native Landscape Plants" available with a bookmark in this hibiscus page with its magnificent red flowers, there's no mistaking it for that o...