MatBio: TREES & SHRUBS - Matanzas Biodiversity

Juniperus virginiana (Eastern Red-cedar,Red Cedar, Eastern Juniper, Red Juniper, Pencil Cedar) is a species of juniper native to eastern North America from southeastern Canada to the Gulf of Mexico and east of the Great Plains. Further west it is replaced by the related Juniperus scopulorum (Rocky Mountain Juniper) and to the southwest by Juniperus ashei (Ashe Juniper). less ↑

Taxodium ascendens, also known as Pond Cypress, is a deciduous conifer of the genus Taxodium, native to North America. Many botanists treat it as a variety of Bald Cypress, Taxodium distichum (as T. distichum var. imbricarium) rather than as a distinct species, but it differs in ecology, occurring mainly in still blackwater rivers, ponds and swamps without silt-rich flood deposits. It predominates in cypress dome habitats. less ↑

Taxodium distichum (bald cypress, baldcypress, bald-cypress, cypress, southern-cypress, white-cypress, tidewater red-cypress, Gulf-cypress, red-cypress, or swamp cypress) is a deciduous conifer that grows on saturated and seasonally inundated soils of the Southeastern and Gulf Coastal Plains of the United States. less ↑

Pinus taeda, commonly known as loblolly pine. is one of several pines native to the Southeastern United States, from central Texas east to Florida, and north to Delaware and Southern New Jersey. The wood industry classifies the species as a southern yellow pine. U.S. Forest Service surveys found that loblolly pine is the second most common species of tree in the United States, after red maple. less ↑

Sabal minor, commonly known as the Dwarf Palmetto or Bush palmetto, is one of about 14 species of palmetto palm (Arecaceae, genus Sabal). It is native to the southeastern United States. In former times, it was said to be native as far north as southeastern Virginia, but its current known range begins about 10 miles south of the Virginia border on Monkey Island in Currituck County, North Carolina, and continues south to Florida. It is widespread... less ↑

Sabal palmetto, also known as cabbage palm,palmetto, cabbage palmetto,palmetto palm, blue palmetto,Carolina palmetto,common palmetto,swamp cabbage and sabal palm, is one of 15 species of palmetto palm (Arecaceae, genus Sabal). It is native to the subtropical Gulf coast/south Atlantic coast of the USA, as well as Cuba and the Bahamas. In the United States it was originally found throughout Florida and along the Gulf coast, but now occurs northward through southernmost North Carolina. It is the state... less ↑

Serenoa repens, commonly known as saw palmetto, is the sole species currently classified in the genus Serenoa. It has been known by a number of synonyms, including Sabal serrulatum, under which name it still often appears in alternative medicine. It is a small palm, normally reaching a height of around 2–4 m (3–6 ft). Its trunk is sprawling, and it grows in clumps or dense thickets in sandy coastal lands or as undergrowth in pine woods or hardwood... less ↑

Common Elderberry is an attractive shrub, but often ignored because of its ubiquitous occurrence. In fact, people often destroy this shrub along fences or waterways in residential areas, notwithstanding its outstanding value to wildlife, particularly to songbirds. Sometimes this plant is referred to as Sambucus nigra var. canadensis by some authorities, because it is regarded as a variety of the European species. Return less ↑

Liquidambar styraciflua, commonly called the American sweetgum, sweet-gum (sweet gum in the UK),alligator-wood,American-storax,bilsted,red-gum,satin-walnut, or star-leaved gum, is a deciduous tree in the genus Liquidambar native to warm temperate areas of eastern North America and tropical montane regions of Mexico and Central America. A popular ornamental tree in temperate climates, it is recognizable by the combination of its five-pointed star-shaped leaves and its hard, spiked fruits. It is currently classified in the plant family Altingiaceae, but was... less ↑

Rhus copallina (orth. var. Rhus copallinum), Shining Sumac, Dwarf Sumac, Flameleaf Sumac or Winged Sumac, is a species of flowering plant in the cashew family (Anacardiaceae) that is native to eastern North America. It is a deciduous tree growing to 3.5–5.5 metres (11–18 ft) tall and an equal spread with a rounded crown. A 5-year-old sapling will stand about 2.5 metres (8.2 ft). less ↑

Schinus terebinthifolius is a species of flowering plant in the cashew family, Anacardiaceae, that is native to subtropical and tropical South America (southeastern Brazil, northern Argentina and Paraguay). It is found in the following states of Brazil: Alagoas, Bahia, Espírito Santo, Mato Grosso do Sul, Minas Gerais, Pernambuco, Paraná, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Norte, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, São Paulo and Sergipe. Common names include Brazilian pepper, aroeira, rose pepper, and Christmasberry. less ↑

Asimina obovata, the bigflower pawpaw, is a shrub or small tree in the custard apple family. It is an endemic native to Florida, where it is found on open sandy hammocks and in dry woods. Showy white flowers in late winter to early summer are followed by large green edible fruit. Along with the other members of the genus, it serves as a host plant for zebra swallowtail butterfly and pawpaw sphinx moth less ↑

Shrubs , to 1.5 m; crown much branched. Shoots red-brown to tan, distally red or pale-hairy, becoming gray-brown, distally glabrous or sparsely pale-hairy. Leaves: petiole 2-6 mm. Leaf blade oblong to elliptic or narrowly obovate, 5-8 cm, leathery, base abruptly and broadly cuneate or rounded, margins strongly to moderately revolute, apex acute to broadly rounded, occasionally notched; surfaces abaxially densely orange-hairy, becoming sparsely so on veins, adaxially sparsely orange-hairy, becoming glabrous and often glaucous. Inflorescences on previous year's growth; peduncle slender, 2-3.5 cm, tomentose; bracteoles 1-2, basal, usually ovate-triangular, rarely more than 2-3 mm, hairy. Flowers 1-3 per node, fragrant, large; sepals triangular, 8-10 mm, abaxially orange-puberulent; outer petals spreading, white or cream, narrowly oblong to obovate, 2.5-6 cm, abaxially puberulent on veins; inner petals incurved, white, yellowish white, rarely pink or cherry red, mostly with deep maroon to purple corrugate zone, lance-hastate, 1/3-1/2 length of outer petals, fleshier, base saccate, margins revolute; pistils 3-8. Berries yellow-green, 4-7 cm. Seeds dark to pale brown, lustrous, 1-2 cm. 2 n =18. less ↑

Ilex ambigua is a large shrub or small tree up to 6 metres (20 ft) tall. The branches are covered in shiny dark brown or black bark which becomes flaky with age. The twigs are purple. Some branches have a thick coat of fine hairs. The leaves are up to 18 centimeters long by 7 wide. The leaf margins are partially or entirely toothed or wavy.

The species is dioecious, with male and female reproductive parts occurring on separate individuals. The fruit is a spherical red drupe. The seeds are dispersed by animals, which eat the fruits.

This holly, Ilex ambigua, grows in many types of sandy habitat, such as sand scrub and hammocks and hardwood forests and woodlands. It may grow with pines such as loblolly, slash, and shortleaf pine, and oak species. It sometimes grows with its relative, American holly. less ↑

Ilex glabra, also known as Appalachian Tea, Dye-leaves, Evergreen Winterberry, Gallberry, Inkberry, is a species of evergreen holly native to Eastern North America in the United States and Atlantic Canada. Its native range is from Florida north to Nova Scotia and the southern Ohio and Mississippi Valleys. This plant is often used as an ornamental plant. Gallberry nectar is the source of a pleasant honey that is popular in the southern United States. less ↑

Ilex vomitoria, commonly known as yaupon or yaupon holly, is a species of holly that is native to southeastern North America. The word yaupon was derived from its Catawban name, yopún, which is a diminutive form of the word yop, meaning "tree". Another common name, cassina, was borrowed from the Timucua language (despite this, it usually refers to Ilex cassine). less ↑

Carpinus caroliniana (American hornbeam) is a small hardwood tree in the genus Carpinus. American hornbeam is also known as blue-beech, ironwood, and musclewood. It is native to eastern North America, from Minnesota and southern Ontario east to Maine, and south to eastern Texas and northern Florida. It also grows in Canada (southwest Quebec and southeast Ontario), Mexico (central and southern), Guatemala, and western Honduras. less ↑

Hypericum crux-andreae, commonly called St. Peter's-wort, is a species of flowering plant in the Hypericaceae (St. John's wort) family. It is a small shrub native to Eastern North America. It is primarily found in the sandy soils of the Coastal Plain with extensions into the Piedmont and Cumberland Plateau. It is found in wet flatwoods, and generally in wet, open, sandy areas such as bogs or seeps, although it is occasionally found in drier habitats. less ↑

Laguncularia racemosa (white mangrove; syn. Conocarpus racemosa) is a species of flowering plant in the leadwood tree family, Combretaceae. It is native to the coasts of western Africa from Senegal to Cameroon, the Atlantic coast of the Americas from Bermuda, Florida, the Bahamas, Mexico, the Caribbean and south to Brazil; and on the Pacific coast of the Americas from Mexico to northwestern Peru, including the Galápagos Islands. less ↑

Cornaceae -- Dogwood family

    Susan Kossuth and Robert L. Scheer

    Ogeechee tupelo (Nyssa ogeche), also called Ogeechee-lime, sour  tupelo-gum, white tupelo, and bee-tupelo (3), is a scarce small  tree or much branched shrub found along rivers and swamps of the  Coastal Plain in constantly wet soils that are often flooded. The  wood is of little value, but the mature fruits and their juice  are used by people. It is also an important honey tree.

    Much of the information given here was contributed by L.  T. Nieland, formerly State Extension Forester, Gainesville, FL,  who observed Ogeechee tupelo for many years in its natural  habitat and experimented with its cultivation for farm use.

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Nyssa biflora, commonly referred to as the swamp tupelo, or blackgum is a species of tupelo that lives in wetland habitats. Swamp tupelo grows chiefly in the coastal plains from Delaware, eastern Maryland, and southeastern Virginia, south to southern Florida and west to eastern Texas. Its range extends north up the Mississippi Valley to southern Arkansas and west and south Tennessee. less ↑

Cyrilla racemiflora, the sole species in the genus Cyrilla, is a flowering plant in the family Cyrillaceae, native to warm temperate to tropical regions of the Americas, from the southeastern United States (coastal areas from southeastern Texas east to southeastern Virginia), south through the Caribbean, Mexico (Oaxaca only) and Central America to northern Brazil and Colombia in South America. Common names include swamp cyrilla, swamp titi,red titi,black titi,white titi,leatherwood,ironwood,he huckleberry, and myrtle. less ↑

Diospyros virginiana is a persimmon species commonly called the American Persimmon,Common Persimmon,Eastern Persimmon, "'Simmon", "Possumwood", or "Sugar-plum". It ranges from southern Connecticut/Long Island to Florida, and west to Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Kansas. The tree grows wild but has been cultivated for its fruit and wood since prehistoric times by Native Americans. less ↑

Elaeagnus pungens is a species of flowering plant in the family Elaeagnaceae, known by the common names thorny olive and silverthorn; also by the family name "oleaster". It is native to Asia, including China and Japan. It is present in the southeastern United States as an introduced species, a common landscaping and ornamental plant, and sometimes an invasive species. less ↑

Agarista populifolia is a species in the family Ericaceae with the common name of Florida Hobblebush. It forms dense thickets which are difficult to penetrate, thus the common name. Stems often lean and arching. It is found in the southeastern United States inhabiting moist to wet woodlands. It is an evergreen shrub with small white flowers on the underside of its arching branches. less ↑

Vaccinium corymbosum, the northern highbush blueberry, is a species of blueberry native to eastern North America, from the Great Lakes region east to Nova Scotia, and south through the Northeastern United States and Appalachian region, to the Southeastern United States in Mississippi. Other common names include blue huckleberry, tall huckleberry, swamp huckleberry, high blueberry, and swamp blueberry. less ↑

Vaccinium stamineum, commonly known as deerberry, tall deerberry, squaw huckleberry, highbush huckleberry, buckberry, and southern gooseberry, is a species of flowering plant in the heath family, Ericaceae. It is native to North America, including Ontario, the eastern United States, and parts of Mexico. It is most common in the southeastern United States. less ↑

Amorpha fruticosa is a species of flowering plant in the legume family (Fabaceae) known by several common names, including desert false indigo, false indigo-bush, and bastard indigobush. It is found wild in most of the contiguous United States, southeastern Canada, and northern Mexico, but it is probably naturalized in the northeastern and northwestern portion of its current range. The species is also present as an introduced species in Europe, Asia, and other continents. It is often... less ↑

Erythrina herbacea, commonly known as the Coral Bean, Cherokee Bean, Red Cardinal or Cardinal Spear, is a flowering shrub or small tree found throughout the southeastern United States and northeastern Mexico; it has also been reported from parts of Central America and, as an introduced species, from Pakistan. Various other systematic names have been used for this plant in the past, including Erythrina arborea, Erythrina hederifolia, Erythrina humilis, Erythrina rubicunda, Corallodendron herbaceum and Xyphanthus hederifolius. less ↑

Indigofera suffruticosa, commonly known as Añil, Guatemalan indigo, Small-leaved indigo (Sierra Leone), West Indian indigo, and Wild indigo, is a flowering plant in the pea family, Fabaceae. In Hawaiian it is known as either ʻInikō/Inikoa, or Kolū; in Fijian it is called Vaivai, the Samoans call it Laʻau mageso, on Guam it is called Aniles, and in Tonga it is referred to as ʻakauveli (itchy plant). less ↑

Shrubs , deciduous or tardily deciduous, to 1 m. Bark gray to dark brown. Twigs gray-brown to reddish brown, 1-2 mm diam., sparsely to uniformly pubescent. Terminal buds brown to red-brown, ovoid, 2.5-4.5 mm, glabrous or with ciliate scale margins. Leaves: petiole 1.5-4.5 mm, pubescent. Leaf blade oblong to narrowly obovate, 25-100 × 10-33 mm, base acute to rounded, margins entire, revolute, with 1 apical awn, apex acute or obtuse to rounded; surfaces abaxially uniformly gray-brown pubescent, rarely glabrate, adaxially somewhat convex, rugose, glabrous or with scattered hairs along midrib. Acorns annual; cup deeply saucer-shaped to turbinate, 5-12 mm high × 10-15 mm wide, covering 1/3-1/2(-2/3) nut, outer surface pubescent, inner surface densely pubescent, scales rarely involute, often tuberculate, tips tightly appressed, acute; nut globose to ovoid or broadly oblong, 9.5-15 × 9-12 mm, glabrate, scar diam. 5-8 mm. less ↑

Quercus geminata, commonly called Sand Live Oak, is an evergreen oak tree that is native to parts of the coastal southeastern United States, along the Atlantic Coast from Miami-Dade County, Florida northward to southeastern Virginia and along the Gulf Coast from Florida northward and westward to southern Mississippi, on seacoast dunes and on white sands in evergreen oak scrubs. less ↑

Quercus inopina occurs from Orange County, Florida, southwest to Manatee County and south to Martin County. It flowers one to two weeks later than Q . myrtifolia (A. F. Johnson and W. G. Abrahamson 1982). 

 The leaves of this species often have numerous small black dots on the adaxial surface. These are ascocarps (the sexual fruiting bodies of ascomycete fungi) of the genus Asterina (D. M. Hunt, pers. comm).

Although no hybrids have been formally described, evidence of hybridization of Quercus inopina with Q . hemisphaerica , Q . laevis , and Q . myrtifolia has been reported (D. M. Hunt 1989). less ↑

Quercus laevis, the turkey oak, is a member of the red oak group of oaks. It is native to the southeastern United States, occurring on the coastal plain from Delaware south to central Florida, and west to southeast Louisiana. The name turkey oak derives from the resemblance of the leaves to a turkey's foot. A Turkish and southern European species Quercus cerris is also commonly referred to as Turkey oak, and Quercus laevis is sometimes referred... less ↑

Quercus minima, the Dwarf Live Oak, is a rhizomatous oak tree. Growth is shrub-like, commonly forming extensive cloned colonies. Leaves are alternate, simple, and entire or with irregular teeth or lobes. Lobes, when present, are usually spine tipped. Leaves are retained through the winter, dropping just before or as new growth resumes in late winter or early spring. It is native to the southeastern United States from Louisiana (possibly Texas) eastward to Florida and Northward along... less ↑

Quercus nigra, the water oak, is an oak in the red oak group (Quercus sect. Lobatae), native to the southeastern United States, from southern Delaware and south to the coastal areas of Maryland, Virginia, the piedmont of North Carolina, all of South Carolina, most of Georgia (with the exception of the Appalachian Mountains), all of Alabama, Mississippi, central Florida, and westward to Louisiana and eastern Texas. From there, northward to southeastern Missouri including Arkansas, eastern Oklahoma,... less ↑

Carya aquatica (Bitter pecan or Water hickory) is a large tree, that can grow over 30 metres (98 ft) tall of the Juglandaceae or walnut family. In the American South it is a dominant plant species found on clay flats and backwater areas near streams and rivers. The species reproduces aggressively both by seed and sprouts from roots and from stumps of cut trees. Water hickory is a major component of wetland forests now in the south... less ↑

Carya glabra, the Pignut hickory, is a common but not abundant species in the oak-hickory forest association in the Eastern United States and Canada. Other common names are pignut, sweet pignut, coast pignut hickory, smoothbark hickory, swamp hickory, and broom hickory. The pear-shaped nut ripens in September and October and is an important part of the diet of many wild animals. The wood is used for a variety of products, including fuel for home heating. less ↑