Rare Plants in the Understory
The floodplain forest
is home to one of Sugar Hill’s rarest plants along with another unusual
species. Together, these two plants represent the dueling
reproductive strategies of herbs in our area. Celandine-Poppy and
Mist-Flower are like the Aesop’s fable about the tortoise and the hare
--- slow and steady versus quick and fleeting --- but in nature, there
is room for everyone to be a winner.
First the
tortoise --- the Celandine-Poppy. Like many of the flowers in the
nearby cove hardwood forest, Celandine-Poppies are perennials that
mature and reproduce slowly, storing energy in their roots from year to
year. Their seeds are also dispersed slowly since each seed has a
fatty bulge that attracts ants, tempting the insects to carry
Celandine-Poppy’s seeds underground to a new location a few feet
away. Slow-growing herbs like the Celandine-Poppy are well-suited
to life in mature forests where their ability to store sugar in their
roots and bloom before the leaves come out on the trees gives them an
advantage. Unsurprisingly, the Celandine-Poppies in the
floodplain are tucked back against the hillside, where raging
floodwaters will have slowed to gently pond around and feed the
Celandine-Poppies without pushing the old roots out of the ground.
If
Celandine-Poppy is the tortoise, Mist-Flower is the hare.
Mist-Flower is a member of an immensely successful family --- the Aster
family --- that is probably already familiar to you from the dandelions
in your yard or the Oxeye Daisies growing along the side of the
road. The Aster family contains hundreds of species in southwest
Virginia alone, most of which prefer to grow in old fields or other
disturbed habitats. If you pick a dandelion and peer closely at
its flower, you will see what distinguishes this family from all others
--- each “flower” is actually dozens or even hundreds of tiny flowers
packed together. The combined flower head is big and showy enough
to attract pollinators, and once pollinated each tiny flower turns into
a seed. One Mist-Flower plant can easily produce a thousand
seeds, each of which is framed by tiny hairs that catch the wind or
water, spreading the plant’s young for miles in every direction.
Unlike the
Celandine-Poppy that stores energy in its roots and blooms in early
spring, most members of the Aster family start from scratch with few or
no reserves each spring. As a result, the Mist-Flower and its
relatives need to suck up sunlight all spring and summer before they
have enough energy to put out flowers. This strategy works well
in disturbed habitats like old fields and the banks of rivers since
there is often bare ground where the young plant can start growing
without a lot of competition from more slow and steady neighbors.
These two
floodplain herbs are also indicative of the two main threats to
floodplain forests. Slow-reproducing Celandine-Poppies are most
threatened by fragmentation since they are unable to spread their seeds
between forest patches separated by pastures or yards.
Mist-Flowers, on the other hand, are threatened by damming up rivers,
preventing the flooding that disturbs the soil and gives them a place
to grow. Only in protected forests along untamed rivers are the
tortoise and the hare able to grow in harmony.
Not
pictured:
Celandine-Poppy
Scientific
Name: Stylophorum diphyllum
Family:
Papaveraceae (Poppy Family)
Habitat:
Moist woods
Blooms:
March to April
Rare: G5
S2
Mist-Flower
Scientific
Name: Conoclinium coelestinum
Family:
Asteraceae (Aster Family)
Habitat:
Wet woods and meadows
Blooms:
July to October
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