13 December 2023.
Okaloosa County, Florida, United States
Locality: Yellow River Water Management Area, found in an area where an unnamed unpaved road dead ends near the Yellow River. This unpaved road is accessed from Old River Road to the east near the junction with Shockley Springs Road. Individuals are accessed by foot along the edge of the river and associated wetland depressions to the west of the road.
Coordinates: 30.8698, -86.5938
(Map it)
Elevation: 23m.
Georeference protocol: Lat/lon determined by GPS
Habitat: Wild Habitat
Environment description: Plants growing in seasonally inundated swamp habitats associated with the Yellow River. Plants are emergent during portions of the year, primarily during the growing season. During this time of collection, water had receded from the wetlands but the area was still quite wet with many tiny stream rivulets still draining. Slope: N/A. Aspect: N/A. The underlying geology of this area is the Alum Bluff Group of Miocene origin. It includes the Chipola Formation, Oak Grove Sand, Shoal River Formation, Choctawhatchee Formation and the Jackson Bluff Formation. The formations included in this group are generally defined on the basis of their molluscan faunas and stratigraphic position. Puri (1953) described sediment facies as they relate to the formations of the Alum Bluff Group. These sediments are lithologically distinct as a group, not as individual units. The Alum Bluff Group crops out or is beneath a thin overburden in the western panhandle from river valleys in Okaloosa County eastward to western Jackson County. The Alum Bluff Group consists of clays, sands and shell beds which may vary from fossiliferous, sandy clays to unfossiliferous sands and clays and occasional carbonate beds. Mica is a common constituent and glauconite and phosphate occur sporadically. Induration varies from essentially nonindurated in sands to well indurated in carbonate lenses. Colors range from cream to olive gray with mottled reddish brown in weathered sections. Sand grain size varies from very fine to very coarse with sporadic occurrences of gravel. These sediments generally have low permeabilities and are part of the intermediate confining unit/aquifer system. (Source: USGS Florida Geologic Map Data.) The surface soil profile of this area is primarily Kinston, Johnston, and Bibb soils, frequently flooded. Kinston Series soils are poorly drained, alluvial, fine-loamy, siliceous, and acid soils of flood plains. They are peaty to loamy friable, slightly sticky and slightly plastic in the upper 0 to 7.5 cm of the strata with less sand and more silt-loam in progressively deeper strata. The Johnston Series consists of very deep, very poorly drained coarse-loamy, siliceous, active, acid, thermic Cumulic Humaquepts. The upper 0-75 cm is black, mucky loam that is friable and very strongly acid. The lower strata to 1.75 m is dark gray, loamy fine sand, single grained, loose and very strongly acid. The Bibb Series soils consists of very deep, poorly drained, moderately permeable soils on flood plains of streams in the Southern Coastal Plain (133A) Major Land Resource Area. They formed in stratified loamy and sandy alluvium that are commonly and frequently flooded and water runs off the surface very slowly. Slopes range from 0 to 2 percent. (Source: NRCS Web Soil Survey.)
Number of plants sampled: 15
Associated species: Viburnum dentatum; Ilex decidua; Sabal minor; Carex sp.; Carpinus caroliniana; Liquidambar styraciflua; Cyrilla racemiflora; Taxodium distichum; Quercus lyrata; Quercus laurifolia; Betula nigra; Bignonia capreolata; Crataegus marshallii; Toxicodendron radicans; Viola sp.; Ilex verticillata; Fraxinus caroliniana; Salix sp.; Chasmanthium latifolium; Cephalanthus occidentalis; Cornus foemina.
Comment: This species is a multi-trunked, deciduous small tree with an upright spreading habit in youth becoming wide spreading with age. Mature plants range from 4-7 m tall x 3-10 m wide. The largest trunks observed were 30 cm in diameter; at this size the trunks are smooth with a tannish-yellow color. Most trunks, though, range in size from 7.5-15 cm in diameter; stems this size are more silver gray but often have blotches of tannish-yellow in them. Individual mature species commonly produce colonies of stems out from the parent plant 2-3 meters with as many as 25 individual trunks in a colony. Leaves are deciduous, alternate, and simple. Typical leaves are lanceolate to elliptic with a long acuminate apex and tapered leaf base; size ranges from 5-9 cm long x 1.5-2.5 cm wide. Leaves have very shallow dentation; so shallow that they appear entire at first glance. The upper portion of the leaves is a dull green color. Some leaves remaining on plants had dull yellow fall color as well. Fruits are borne on short pedicels, are round, dull red, and approximately 8-15 mm in diameter. They generally drop in mid- to late autumn. Plants are frequent in this location, but rare and scattered otherwise. Cuttings collected from 15 male or unknown sex plants.
Collector(s):