Plant of the Day: October 2016

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Plant of the day is: Pinguicula primuliflora or primrose butterwort

Another southeastern species. Somebody keeps bringing all these plants in from that region...hmmmm. Said person piqued my interest discussing its dormancy today, so here we are. One of the butterworts, a really neat group of plants I have been remiss to address.

Pinguicula primuliflora (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) photo by dogtooth77

Taxonomy etc.: A member of the bladderwort family actually. Lentibulariaceae ...really rolls off the tongue right? Say that one five times fast. A fairly small family in terms of genera with only Pinguicula, Genlisea (corkscrew plants) and Utricularia (the bladderworts), and Isoloba. The bladderworts are well worth a look and perhaps soon they'll have their time to shine as well, they're quite fascinating in their underwater capture methods. From a genetic standpoint, members of this family originally evolved the ability to secrete proteinase mucilage as a deterrent to insect predation and then later further evolved to adsorb nutrients from captured prey. The family contains about 312 accepted species. The Pinguicula genus contains about 73 accepted species. For a very nice description of family characteristics visit Tropical Biodiversity. One fun fact is that it is the most species rich family of carnivorous plants. Worth noting that there are both tropical and temperate members in the genus so they adapt to those changes quite differently. Also...not all of them are carnivorous P. cyclosecta for example.

Pinguicula primuliflora at the University of Washington greenhouse collections (CC BY-SA 4.0) photo by Ryan Kitko

Description: Herbaceous perennial. Leaf margins are entire, forming a rosette, I'm saying fairly oblong and rounded at the tip and about 6-9cm long. Flowers are kind of a light purple to pink. When germinating and establishing there is a single ephemeral root that then disappears to be replaced by adventitious roots. Neat. The roots mainly just absorb water and help anchor the plant. They get their nutrients through their sticky leaves that trap small gnats and insects. Yum. The leaves are covered in tiny hairs that secrete said mucilagenous (I like that word...) liquid. Worth noting that the scapes also have hairs and can trap insects, why waste a meal on a flower?? They also form new plantlets from the tips of their leaves...cooooool. I wanna see that. Very detailed description here. I do not believe this species grows different leaves in the winter... :(. Maybe we'll get a hold of some that do though.

Pinguicula vulgaris Illustration (Public Domain)

Distribution/Culture: Typically found on the extreme southern coast areas starting in Louisiana stretching through the panhandle. While most Pinguicula prefer very moist soil, these prefer it VERY wet, near to growing in water even. In terms of soil, broadly, they prefer similar soils to most carnivorous plants: acidic and poor. Combinations of peat, sphagnum, and sand should be included in a growing mix. High light exposure is kind of their thing too. I'm unsure if you can use similar methods to Drosera to feed them in lieu of insects. Finely ground betabites fish food is probably an option though...I'd wager. They do require a dormancy in the winter and need to be kept fairly cool (above freezing) for several months.

Thursday, October 6, 2016

Plant of the day is: Myrcianthes fragrans or Simpson's Stopper/Twinberry

I promise this has nothing to do with the fact that Florida is staring at a category 4 hurricane. Pure coincidence. I actually just cleaned and sowed some seeds of these today and decided I'd like to learn a little bit more about them. The fruit is edible actually (not the seeds I was told). To me it reminded me a bit of the taste of gin... not bad, not great, but interesting. Definitely a flavor I'd spend some time with throughout the seasons. Hoping to get one up and growing.

Taxonomy, etc: The Myrcianthes genus is fairly small with only about 37 species found throughout Central and South America. From a quick glance it looks like M. fragrans is the only species native to the United States. A good chunk of the rest of them are in Colombia, Bolivia, and Venezuela. The genus was described in 1856. The genus is the in the Myrtaceae family with Eucalyptus, Melaleuca, and another Caribbean fruit that I have eaten, Syzygium samarangense. A common theme of the family is brightly colored and numerous stamens. While the stamens for M. fragrans aren't particularly colorful, they are numerous and give a decent show. Published by Roger McVaugh in Fieldiana, Bot. in 1963. It was listed as Myrtus fragrans at one point by Swartz BUT do to taxonomical confusion was named by McVaugh possibly all because of a neglected question mark. The technicalities of taxonomy. Read the tale here.

From Perfect Island Website

Description: A small tree/shrub reaching 6-10m tall and 3-6m wide. Habit greatly depends on growing location and pruning habit. You can really grow it how you like. It has a flaking outsider bark, reddish brown inner bark. Will develop a buttressed root flare with age. Leaves simple, entire, and opposite with a short petiole. Fairly elliptical leaf. The leaves can often curl a bit at the margins and tips (see below). The leaves smell quite nice when crushed (hence fragrans). Flowers throughout the year but see best flowering in Florida in February through early summer. Flowers are white, also smell lovely, and lead to a very bright red fruit with two seeds in it (can confirm). The fruits are a popular favorite of native birds. The flowers are also frequented by a variety of pollinator plants. It's a pretty awesome Florida native really. You can even turn it into a hedge. It will get the guava fungus

Thanks to the University of Florida IFAS Extenstion for a great reference on this.

Distribution/Range: It is a native of South Florida but has made its way well up the coastline up to Charleston, SC. It is also found in the Caribbean but is rare in Puerto Rico. The Island of Mayaguana in the Southern Bahamas still has forests of them growing on elevated rocky ridges. Apparently if you are in Florida they're fairly common, even used as parking lot island trees.

Culture: Has a high salt tolerance, which is to be expected given its coastal propensity, prefers well drained soils but can handle occasional saturated soils (like ...umm hurricanes??). It is fairly drought tolerant once established. It is a 9b-11 so don't think about trying it outside in the Midwest.