BOT3151C Week 6 Plant Characteristics

Photos from iNaturalist. For learning characters rather than memorizing ID.

Apteria aphylla

In inconspicuous mycoparasite lacking leaves or chlorophyll. Grows at base of trees. Purple, unbranched flowering stem with solitary flowers with parts in multiples of three.

Agarista populifolia

Florida hobblebush. Shrub or tree with alternate, narrowly ovate, coriaceous (egg-shaped, thick and leathery) leaves. Long, unbranched wand-like stems. Trunks have red and sheddy bark. Capsules.

Ageratina jucunda

Hammock snakeroot. Herb with leaves opposite, glabrous (smooth), crenate-serrate (saw blade with rounded teeth). Tiny white flowers in numerous discoid heads.

Asimina obovata

Nettled pawpaw. Shrub with long, wide, obovate leaves on brown stem. Reddish-brown hairs on leaves and stem. Crushed leaf smells like green pepper. Lumpy banana-shaped fruits.

Eriogonum tomentosum

Dogtongue buckwheat. Herb. Leaves whorled. Leaf underside and stems covered with fine, silky, matted pubescence. Flowers small, white, in terminal panicles (branching cluster at top).

Froelichia floridana

Plains snakecotton. Herb with white, woolly flowers on tall flowering stalks. Leaves opposite, narrowly oblanceolate to elliptic (narrow lance shape to ovals), occuring on the lower third of the stem.

Garberia heterophylla

Shrub. Leaves waxy, sticky to touch. Lavender flowers in flat-topped clusters of discoid heads. Florida endemic.

Mitchella repens

Patridgeberry. Herb. Small ground-creeper. Leaves dark green, opposite. Flowers in pairs, tiny, white, 4 petals. Fruit a bright red-orange verry formed from two flowers.

Persea palustris

Swamp bay. Tree. Crushed leaf has aromatic odor. Leaf underside fuzzy with fine pubescence.

Pyrrhobryum spiniforme

Large moss up to 6cm tall, growing at base of trees in moist soil. Stems upright with narrow toothed leaves. Look like miniature pines. Stems twist and lean as they dry out.

Quercus laevis

American turkey oak. Small to medium-size tree. Leaves glabrous, deeply lobed, lobes bristle-tipped.

Smilax pumila

Sarsaparilla vine. Creeping vine with NO PRICKLES. Leaves pubeschent, with 3 main veins arising from base. Pair of tendrils at base of each leaf.

Sorghastrum secundum

Lopsided Indiangrass. Grass. grows in tall bunches. Showy influorescences in the fall, bracts with bronze to brown hairs, long, twisted, reddish-brown awns, bright yellow anthers. Influorescence occurs on one side of the rachis. Leaf sheaths finely pubescent.

Vaccinium arboreum

Sparkleberry. Shrub to small tree. Leaf obovate to wide-elliptic, very shiny on top. Flowers cup-shaped white, pendulous. Fruit a berry.