You’ll find a nice but limited availability of shrubs native to the Apalachicola area in nurseries, but the delightful landscape possibilities far exceed what’s in the market. Below are photos and a bit of information on plants I believe have great potential for Forgotten Coast gardens.
1. The Native Marsh Rose
“Truth and Roses have thorns about them. ” Thoreau
Marsh Rose, Rosa palustris, shows up along wet edges where borrow ditches have been carved out to build roadways. It’s native from our area eastward to Jacksonville, and into the northern third of the Peninsula. It’s rhizomatous, which means you’ll want to give the plant a bit of space along which to send up its canes, which reach 3-4 feet in height and branch to a soft fullness. And yes, the stems bear annoying but very small prickles. But the foliage is beautiful (small leaves with 5-7 leaflets), and the flowers are perfection, small (about 2″ across) 5-petaled roses in a clear soft but absolute pink.
As a member of the Rose family in good standing, this is one of a few species in genus Rosa native to Florida. We are, however at the southern extent of the range; Marsh Rose is reported throughout Eastern North America. Plants are available from a few nurseries, but they can be grown from seed, if you enjoy this kind of challenge. And they are rhizomatous, so cuttings that include a bit of underground stem should stand a good chance of success. The Everwide Farms site tells us: “To soften the hard coating on these seeds, rub them lightly with sandpaper or soak them in 180 degrees F water overnight. Mix the seeds with moist sand and store in the refrigerator for 4 months before planting. Sow the seed in early spring, planting 1/2” deep. Keep the soil lightly moist until germination, which is notoriously slow and irregular. Some seeds may not sprout until the next year. “
The specific epithet, “palustris,”t ells us the plant grows in wet or swampy sites, making it a good option for Coastal gardens close to ditches, shallow ponds, and moist drainage slopes.
2. A Bush of Celestial Buttons
“A hidden spark of the dream sleeps In the forest and waits In the celestial spheres of the brain.” Stojanovic
Very common along wet edges throughout the Panhandle, Button Willow, Cephalanthus occidentalis, is under-appreciated as a landscape plant. Most specimens are just 3-5 feet tall, but given time and the right habitat, they can reach tree size. Specimens in Tate’s Hell State Forest exceed 30 feet in height. The shrub will form small thickets in full sun, or partial shade, and in moist to boggy soils. Briefly deciduous, branches leaf out in spring, producing short stems with moderate-sized, paired (opposite on the stem) leaves, each stem terminating with a display of orb-like (I mean perfectly spherical) clusters of tiny white flowers. This is an enchanting plant to encounter, one that any homeowner would enjoy growing.
Many other plants in the Rubiaceae show up as shrubs in tropical landscapes, which means Floridians can enjoy Ixora, Hamelia, and Psychotria, but Cephalanthus (which translates as a head , cephalum, of flowers, anthos) is one of the few woody temperate natives. Plants are available from nurseries, including some selected clones. They can be successfully rooted from cuttings.
3. Erythrina, a banner for the Ruby-throated
Red Banners along the Wayside
Driving along US 98, east of the intersection with SR 65, it’s common to spot short towers of bright red flowers seeming to emerge right from ground. If you stop to investigate, you’ll find these long inflorescences belong to Erythrina herbacea, a prickly, soft-stemmed, sprawling shrub with trifoliate leaves, reminiscent of those on bean vines and kudzu. That similarity should be no surprise, since these plants are all members of the large and varied bean family, along with peanuts, sweet peas, mimosas, clover, soybean, and redbud.
Commonly called Coral Bean because the seed are bright coral red, this is our native representative of a large pantropical genus of showy trees. Its specific epithet “herbacea” reminds us this plant makes lax stems that die back each fall, sometimes to the ground. Given structure to lean against, you’ll sometimes find plants that leave a vegetative impression. But you’ll want to cultivate this curious bean for its lengthy and long-lasting flowering stalks that bear a succession of bright red tubular flowers, a display that seems timed to greet arrival of migrant Ruby-throated Hummers. Plants are readily available through growers, but you can also save and plant seed that are produced in the contorted pods; they germinate well and are easy to grow.
4. Apalachee Tea – a Holly Ritual
An incredibly fine, small-leaved evergreen shrub, used in landscapes around the South, the native Yaupon, Ilex vomitoria produces leaves similar to Japanese Holly, but fruit like English holly, cheerfully red around Christmas. Not every bush will have berries, though. As with other hollies, Yaupon is dioecious, the male (pollen bearing) flowers produced on a separate plant from the one that will produce berries. Both plants have beautiful foliage, and you’ll need both to score a bountiful crop of the crystalline red fruit.
5. Bayberry – Waxing Myrtles
In the Apalachicola area you might encounter one of three kinds of native Bayberry, the Southeastern Coastal Plain (and outer Piedmont) Southern Bayberry, Morella (Myrica) cerifera, the more Southeastern (scattered) Evergreen Bayberry, Morella caroliniana (M. heterophylla), and the Gulf Coastal (Panhandle through Mississippi) Oderless Bayberry, Morella inodora. Almost ubiquitous near the coast, you’ll find small trees, even groves of Southern Bayberry, which can stand as small trees and also spread rhizomatously.
The shrub has a spicy, woody/piney fragrance, similar to the that of the well-known (unrelated) European Common Myrtle, Myrtus communis. It bears thin-textured, oblanceolate evergreen leaves that issue forth as dull chartreuse, maturing a darker, rusty-colored green (check the golden sunken micro-glands on the lower leaf surface).
Flowers develop in tight on short shoots along the stem, very compact catkins of female flowers and a bit larger catkins of male flowers. In general, Bayberry is dioecious such that a plant will bear all male or all female flowers, though this isn’t inviolate. Enlarging the photos below will show some of that detail.
Fruit develop over a few months, each pistil maturing as a small globose drupe closely attached to the stem. Using a handlens, you’ll discover the outer fruit wall develops large cellular pustules called “knobs” that give the surface a pillowed appearance. By autumn, glands begin exuding waxy lipids (fats) that cover the fruit with scaly silver-white layerings. Studies of Northern Bayberry (Morella pensylvanica) show the layer of useful wax (think bayberry candles, even cosmetics) constitutes over 30% of the fruit dry weight. Our Southern Bayberry is likely similar.
The mature fruit depend on birds for dispersal, and prove a popular food item. As a drupe, the fruit has a hard inner core that would act to protect seed passing through a bird’s digestive system. It works; many seedlings germinate in flower pots on my porch railing each year.
Alan Bornstein, who authored the Flora North America treatment for the family, notes: “Myrica cerifera is an extremely variable species with respect to habitat and corresponding habit/vegetative morphology. In general, plants that occupy dry, sandy (more xeric) areas tend to be strongly rhizomatous, colonial, and smaller in stature, and to possess smaller leaves (commonly recognized as M . cerifera var. pumila ). In contrast, plants of more mesic areas are seldom rhizomatous, not colonial, and often large and treelike, and they have larger leaves. These “extremes pass insensibly into each other” (J. W. Thieret 1966). I agree with Thieret’s contention that these differences do not constitute reliable criteria upon which one should base taxonomic distinctions. Until it can be determined with certainty whether these differences are due to genetics or environment, the question will remain open. I have chosen the conservative route.”
Miller, D.L., M. Thetford, and M. Schneider. 2008. “Distance from the Gulf influences survival and growth of three barrier island dune plants.” Journal of Coastal Research 24(3):261–266. https://doi.org/10.2112/07-0914.1
Thieret, J. W. 1966. Habit variation in Myrica pensylvanica and M. cerifera. Castanea 31: 183-185.
6. Beautyberry
One is tempted to associate the Mints (Lamiaceae) with herbs, like Salvia and Scutellaria. In the Apalachicola region, however, we encounter woody perennials such as Conradina and Calamintha, as well as shrubs, the introduced Chaste bush, Vitex, and the native Beautyberry, Callicarpa americana, which is one of many North America’s ancient North Temperate “vicariads.” These are plants related closely to species native to Southeast Asia, and understood to have been part of an ancient flora that spread over both continents. In this instance, relatives are yet further afield, with over 160 species of Callicarpa reported from, mostly from Asia but also from Madagascar, South America, and even Australia. Several are cultivated – Callicarpa japonica, China’s C. bodinieri, and our native C. americana.
American Beautyberry is a handsome deciduous shrub, tolerant of a range of conditions, occurring natively as far north as Missouri and west into Oklahoma. Here in the Panhandle the plant is common both in the drier, deeper-sand Pine Flatwoods of Liberty County as well as wet edges near the coast. Most people may not notice the pale pink blossoms that develop in axils of new leaves in early June, but see quite readily the axillary clusters of BB-sized to slightly larger berries that mature in shades of pale to lurid lavender.
Plants are available from nurseries, and can be grown from seed, given patience. A crop of fruit I planted lay dormant for more than a year, healthy seedlings suddenly appearing well past time I had given up hope.
7. Styrax
8. Sambucus
9. Cliftonia
Link to this Page: https://botanyincontext.com/nine-fine-native-shrubs/