Lysimachia asperulifolia

Last updated

Lysimachia asperulifolia
Lysimachia asperulifolia.jpg
Status TNC G3.svg
Vulnerable  (NatureServe)
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Asterids
Order: Ericales
Family: Primulaceae
Genus: Lysimachia
Species:
L. asperulifolia
Binomial name
Lysimachia asperulifolia

Lysimachia asperulifolia (orth. var. L. asperulaefolia) is a rare species of flowering plant in the Primulaceae known by the common name rough-leaved loosestrife and roughleaf yellow loosestrife. It is endemic to the Atlantic coastal plain in North Carolina and northern South Carolina in the United States, where there are 64 known populations. [1] It is a federally listed endangered species of the United States.

Contents

Description

This plant is a rhizomatous perennial herb growing erect to a maximum height around 60 to 70 centimeters. The lower stem is pinkish in color and ribbed, and the upper stem is yellowish and lacks ribs. The stem in the inflorescence is covered in reddish glands. The leaves are green, lance-shaped, and up to 5 centimeters long by 2 wide. They are borne in whorls of three or four around the stem, or sometimes in opposite pairs. The leaves are not rough in texture as the common name would suggest. [2] Smaller, tougher, brown-colored leaves are opposite or borne in whorls of up to 7 near the stem base. The top of the stem is occupied by the inflorescence, which is a raceme of star-shaped yellow flowers interspersed with leaflike green bracts. Each flower has 4 to 7, but usually five, yellow petals with wide bases and pointed, ragged tips. The petals and green sepals are dotted with red glands and streaked with reddish resin canals. The fruit is a red-mottled straw-colored capsule a few millimeters in length. [1] [3]

Habitat

This herb grows in a number of plant communities on the coastal plains of southern North Carolina and northern South Carolina, including pocosins, sandhills, pine flatwoods and pine savannas. [2] It is most commonly found in open areas in the ecotone between longleaf pine uplands and pond pine pocosins. [1] The soil is seasonally wet to waterlogged or submerged, low in nutrients, rich in peat over sandy substrates. [1] The plant is found in sections of these habitat types which, in their pristine state, are openings in a dense layer of shrubs which are kept open by severe periodic wildfires. Fire prevents ecological succession, maintaining a type of ecosystem in which the taller vegetation is kept small and sparse, allowing the herb layer to flourish in the sun. [1] Trees, shrubs, and ferns in the area include Aronia arbutifolia (chokeberry), Clethra alnifolia (summersweet), Cyrilla racemiflora (titi), Fothergilla gardenii (dwarf fothergilla), Ilex glabra (Appalachian tea), Magnolia virginiana (sweetbay), Osmunda cinnamomea (cinnamon fern), Persea palustris (swampbay), Symplocos tinctoria (yellowwood), and Vaccinium species (wild blueberries). Herbs, grasses, and mosses associated with this ecosystem include Andropogon glomeratus (bushy bluestem), Aristida stricta (wiregrass), Drosera intermedia (oblong-leaved sundew), Drosera capillaris (pink sundew), Lachnanthes caroliniana (redroot), Peltandra sagittifolia (spoon flower), Sarracenia flava (yellow pitcher plant), and Sphagnum species (sphagnum mosses). [1]

In the 1980s the only known viable populations of the plant were located in Green Swamp Nature Preserve and the Croatan National Forest, and at Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point. [4] Another was located on Fort Bragg. [4] A program of prescribed fire was instituted on military base territory in the region to preserve habitat for the red-cockaded woodpecker (Picoides borealis). This habitat was appropriate for the plant as well, and as a result some additional populations appeared where it had been crowded out by vegetation overgrowth before. One such population is located at Camp Lejeune, and more occurrences grew at Fort Bragg. [4] The South Carolina occurrence is located on Fort Jackson. In 1995 there were 64 populations known. [2] Because the plant usually reproduces vegetatively by sprouting from its rhizome, creating clones, what appears to be a large population may actually be relatively few genetic individuals with many cloned stems above the ground. [2]

Environmental Issues

The main threat to the species is the loss and degradation of its habitat. [2] Much of the land in the region has been developed, the wetlands drained and dried to create land for residential, industrial, and recreational purposes. [1] Habitat that remains is improperly managed, becoming degraded as the natural fire regime is prevented. As fire suppression practices have been implemented, the pocosins, sandhills, and swamps have overgrown with brush and woody vegetation. Shrubs are not kept back and they grow to large sizes and shade out the smaller plants in the herb layer. Even where fire is prescribed or allowed to take place, pocosins do not burn thoroughly enough to remove the heavy organic layers that accumulate there. [1] Activities involved with fire may also be detrimental, as firebreaks are often plowed in the very ecotone openings where the plant most often grows. [1] [4] Agriculture, including pine plantations, and other types of operations alter the hydrology of the wetlands, making conditions unsuitable for this and other native plants. [1] [4] Many of the populations are located on military bases and are vulnerable to destruction during military operations. [4]

Related Research Articles

<i>Drosera</i> Genus of carnivorous flowering plants in the family Droseraceae

Drosera, which is commonly known as the sundews, is one of the largest genera of carnivorous plants, with at least 194 species. These members of the family Droseraceae lure, capture, and digest insects using stalked mucilaginous glands covering their leaf surfaces. The insects are used to supplement the poor mineral nutrition of the soil in which the plants grow. Various species, which vary greatly in size and form, are native to every continent except Antarctica.

<i>Lysimachia</i> Genus of flowering plants in the family Primulaceae

Lysimachia is a genus consisting of 193 accepted species of flowering plants traditionally classified in the family Primulaceae. Based on a molecular phylogenetic study it was transferred to the family Myrsinaceae, before this family was later merged into the Primulaceae.

<i>Drosera rotundifolia</i> Species of flowering plant in the sundew family Droseraceae

Drosera rotundifolia, the round-leaved sundew, roundleaf sundew, or common sundew, is a carnivorous species of flowering plant that grows in bogs, marshes and fens. One of the most widespread sundew species, it has a circumboreal distribution, being found in all of northern Europe, much of Siberia, large parts of northern North America, Korea and Japan but is also found as far south as California, Mississippi and Alabama in the United States of America and in New Guinea.

<i>Drosera anglica</i> Species of carnivorous flowering plant in the family Droseraceae

Drosera anglica, commonly known as the English sundew or great sundew, is a carnivorous flowering plant species belonging to the sundew family Droseraceae. It is a temperate species with a circumboreal range, although it does occur as far south as Japan, southern Europe, and the island of Kauai in Hawaii, where it grows as a tropical sundew. It is thought to originate from an amphidiploid hybrid of D. rotundifolia and D. linearis, meaning that a sterile hybrid between these two species doubled its chromosomes to produce fertile progeny which stabilized into the current D. anglica.

<i>Narthecium americanum</i> Species of flowering plant

Narthecium americanum is a species of flowering plant in the Nartheciaceae known by the common names yellow asphodel and bog asphodel. It is native to New Jersey in the United States. It is now apparently limited to that state, having likely been extirpated from Delaware, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pocosin</span> Kind of wetland of the Atlantic plain

Pocosin is a type of palustrine wetland with deep, acidic, sandy, peat soils. Groundwater saturates the soil except during brief seasonal dry spells and during prolonged droughts. Pocosin soils are nutrient-deficient (oligotrophic), especially in phosphorus.

<i>Drosera intermedia</i> Species of carnivorous flowering plant in the family Droseraceae

Drosera intermedia, commonly known as the oblong-leaved sundew, spoonleaf sundew, or spatulate leaved sundew, is an insectivorous plant species belonging to the sundew genus. It is a temperate or tropical species native to Europe, southeastern Canada, the eastern half of the United States, Cuba, Hispaniola, and northern South America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pinhook Bog</span>

Pinhook Bog is a unique bog in Indiana that has been designated a National Natural Landmark. It is part of Indiana Dunes National Park, an area that many citizens, scientists, and politicians fought hard to preserve. Its sister bog, Volo Bog, is located nearby. The bog contains a large variety of plants, including insect eating plants, tamarack trees, stands of blueberry bushes, and floating mats of sphagnum moss. Pinhook Bog is about 580 acres (2.3 km2), a quarter of which is a floating mat of sphagnum peat moss. A "moat" separates the bog from the uplands.

<i>Lysimachia thyrsiflora</i> Species of flowering plant in the primrose family Primulaceae

Lysimachia thyrsiflora, the tufted loosestrife, is a plant in the genus Lysimachia. It is native to large sections of the northern Northern Hemisphere, including Eurasia and North America. It often grows in marshes, shorelines of lakes and ponds and occasionally along streams. It is an erect perennial herb growing up to 80 centimeters tall and bearing yellow flowers, sometimes dotted with purple. It may be confused with purple loosestrife when not blooming but can be easily distinguished because purple loosestrife has a square stem. Tufted loosestrife has been used medicinally in Asia to combat high blood pressure.

<i>Lysimachia quadrifolia</i> Species of flowering plant

Lysimachia quadrifolia, the whorled loosestrife, whorled yellow loosestrife, or crosswort, is a species of herbaceous plant in the family Primulaceae. It native to the eastern United States and Canada.

<i>Warea carteri</i> Species of flowering plant

Warea carteri is a species of plant in the mustard family, Brassicaceae, known by the common names Carter's pinelandcress and Carter's mustard. It is an endangered, fire-dependent annual herb occurring in xeric, shrub-dominated habitats on the Lake Wales Ridge of central Florida in the United States.

<i>Macbridea alba</i> Species of flowering plant

Macbridea alba is a rare species of flowering plant in the mint family known by the common name white birds-in-a-nest. It is endemic to Florida in the United States, where it is found in four counties in the Florida Panhandle. It is threatened by the loss and degradation of its habitat, and it is federally listed as a threatened species of the United States.

<i>Rhynchospora knieskernii</i> Species of grass-like plant

Rhynchospora knieskernii is a rare species of sedge known by the common name Knieskern's beaksedge. It is endemic to the state of New Jersey in the United States, where it occurs naturallyin the Pine Barrens. Reports have cited it present in Delaware as well, but these populations appear to have been introduced. It is threatened by the destruction and degradation of its habitat. It is a federally listed threatened species of the United States.

<i>Lyonia ligustrina</i> Species of tree

Lyonia ligustrina is a species of flowering plant in the family Ericaceae known by the common names maleberry and he-huckleberry. It is native to the eastern United States from Maine to Florida and west to Texas and Oklahoma.

<i>Kalmia cuneata</i> Species of flowering plant

Kalmia cuneata is a species of flowering plant in the heath family known by the common name whitewicky, sometimes spelled white-wicky or white wicky. It is native to the eastern United States, where it occurs only in North Carolina and South Carolina.

<i>Parnassia caroliniana</i> Species of flowering plant

Parnassia caroliniana is a species of flowering plant in the Celastraceae known by the common name Carolina grass of Parnassus. It is native to the southeastern United States, where it occurs in North Carolina and South Carolina, with an isolated population in the Florida Panhandle.

Solidago verna is a species of flowering plant in the aster family known by the common names springflowering goldenrod and spring goldenrod. It is native to North Carolina and South Carolina in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kingsley Common</span>

Kingsley Common is a 41-hectare (100-acre) protected area in Kingsley, Hampshire, England. The site holds many rare species of animals and birds. Some species of plants and animals may also be subject to special protection under Part I of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, or under the Habitats Regulations 1994.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grīņu Nature Reserve</span> Protected area in Latvia

Grīņu Nature Reserve is a nature reserve, located in Saka Parish, South Kurzeme Municipality in the Courland region of Latvia. Founded in 1936, it belongs to the European Conservation Network Natura 2000. 1,505 hectares of natural habitat are under protection. The Grīņu Reserve is subordinated to the Regional Council for Nature Conservation Courland.

References