General Landscape Uses:
Primarily recommended for natural landscapes and habitat restorations. Also wildflower gardens.
Availability:
Widely available in central Florida. Available at native plant nurseries in northeast Florida.
Description: Medium to large herbaceous wildflower.
Dimensions: About 1-2 feet in height; to 4 feet when in flower. As broad as tall except when in flower.
Growth Rate: Moderate.
Range:
Widespread in eastern and central North America west to Texas and south to Miami-Dade and Collier counties. Presumed extirpated in Miami-Dade County. Very rare or extirpated in Broward County; collected twice west of Deerfield Beach and last reported from the Indian Trace Water Management Basin in 1989. Not documented on barrier islands in South Florida, but possibly historically present; it grows well at
Pan’s Garden in Palm Beach.
Map of select IRC data from peninsular Florida.
Map of Postal Code Areas of IRC data from peninsular Florida.
Habitats: Wet pinelands.
Soils: Wet to moist, seasonally inundated sandy or calcareous soils, without humus.
Nutritional Requirements: Low; it grows in nutrient poor soils.
Salt Water Tolerance: Low; does not tolerate flooding by salt or brackish water.
Salt Wind Tolerance: Low; salt wind may burn the leaves.
Drought Tolerance: Low; requires moist to wet soils and is intolerant of long periods of drought.
Light Requirements: Full sun.
Flower Color: Greenish.
Flower Characteristics: Inconspicuous.
Flowering Season: Summer.
Fruit: A pair of inconspicuous carpels pendent from a supporting axis.
Wildlife and Ecology: Attracts native bees and other beneficial insects.
Comments: See also the Florida Wildflower Foundation's
Flower Friday page.
