Widow Spider
Sunshine Mimosa
Florida Native Plant Society Grant Opportunities
New Grant Announcement: The Cornelia McNamara Grant
For more information visit: www.fnps.org/what-we-do/awards Deadline for all grant applications: March 5, 2021
Through the generosity of Cuplet Fern Chapter member Chris Calder, the Florida Native Plant Society has established the new Cornelia McNamara Grant program to fund applied research on native plants and habitats, particularly those that are rare or imperiled. These small grants ($1,500 or less) are awarded for a 1-year period and intended to support research that will yield data to inform the management for or restoration of native species and habitats.
The grant honors FNPS member Cornelia McNamara who left a generous legacy donation to FNPS. FNPS chapters and/or members will be given preference in awarding this grant. Upon completion of the grant project, the grant recipient is expected to summarize the results (including photographs) in one of two ways: A poster or presentation at the annual FNPS Conference, or a written summary in the Palmetto . Contact — Paul Schmalzer: info@fnps.org
Other FNPS Grant Opportunities
Conservation Grants
FNPS Conservation Grants support applied native plant conservation projects in Florida. Applicants can apply for a grant of up to $5,000 awarded for a 1-year period. Projects must promote the preservation, conservation, or restoration of rare or imperiled native plant taxa, and rare or imperiled native plant communities. To qualify for a Conservation Grant, the proposed project must be sponsored by an FNPS Chapter. Contact — Juliet Rynear: info@fnps.org
Landscape Awards
FNPS presents excellence, honor and merit awards for high quality native plant landscapes in the categories of residential, commercial, institutional, transportation, restoration, mitigation and wildflower/ butterfly gardens. Landscapes must feature primarily native plants. Contact — Ron Blair: info@fnps.org
Research Grants
FNPS Research Grants fund research on native plants. These are small grants (typically $1,500 or less), awarded for a 1-year period, and intended to support research that forwards the mission of the Florida Native Plant Society “to promote the preservation, conservation, and restoration of the native plants and native plant communities of Florida.”
Contact — Paul Schmalzer: info@fnps.org
Dan Austin Award for Ethnobotany
This award is limited to graduate or undergraduate students studying Florida ethnobotany, (the study of the relationship between peoples or cultures with plants native to Florida or Florida ecosystems). These can be current uses or historic uses. Contact — Juliet Rynear: info@fnps.org
The Quarterly Journal of the Florida Native Plant Society
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Vice President, Finance................JimErwin
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Communications...............................Shirley Denton
Education Wendy Poag
Land Management Partners Grace Howell
Landscape Ronald Blair
Policy & Legislation Eugene Kelly
Science ...................................................Paul Schmalzer
Council of Chapters
Chair Kara Driscoll
Vice Chair Wayne Baker
Secretary ...............................................Melanie Simon
Directors-at-Large
Mark Kateli
Andrea Naccarato
Carol Sullivan Committees
Conference Marlene Rodak
Conservation.......................................Todd Angel
To contact board members
Visit www.fnps.org or write care of: FNPS POBox 278, Melbourne, FL 32902-0278
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Palmetto
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The purpose of the Florida Native Plant Society is to preserve, conserve and restore the native plants and native plant communities of Florida.
Official definition of native plant:
For most purposes, the phrase Florida native plant refers to those species occurring within the state boundaries prior to European contact, according to the best available scientific and historical documentation. More specifically, it includes those species understood as indigenous, occurring in natural associations in habitats that existed prior to significant human impacts and alterations of the landscape.
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(ISSN0276-4164) Copyright 2021, Florida Native Plant Society, all rights reserved. No part of the contents of this magazine may be reproduced by any means without written consent of the editor. Palmetto is published four times a year by the Florida Native Plant Society (FNPS) as a benefit to members. The observations and opinions expressed in attributed columns and articles are those of the respective authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official views of the Florida Native Plant Society or the editor, except where otherwise stated.
Editorial Content
We welcome articles on native plant species and related conservation topics, as well as high-quality botanical illustrations and photographs. Contact the editor for guidelines, deadlines and other information.
Features
4 Latrodectus bishopi: The Red Widow
Discover the elusive red widow, a spider that lives exclusively in the scrub and scrubby flatwoods communities of Central and Southeast Florida. Article by Cayley Buckner
8 Bringing Your Lawn Back to Life by Converting Turfgrass to Native Wildflowers
Learn how converting patches of turfgrass to native wildflowers provides the pollen and nectar that pollinators need. Article by Amanda Mikyska and Nash Turley
12 The Art of Native Ferns
See how art can be the perfect medium for both studying and appreciating Florida’s native plants. Illustration by Sydney Kenney
13 Book Review
For anyone embarking on the journey to a native landscape, A Step-by-Step Guide to a Florida Native Yard has detailed advice for each stage of the process. Review by Jan Allyn
14 Plant Profile
Mimosa strigillosa is beloved for its puffy pink oneinch blooms, but it also has wildlife value in the home landscape. Article by Marjorie Shropshire
ONTHE COVER: In contrast to turfgrass lawns, a diverse patch of native wildflowers provides the foundation for a food web with a wide variety of pollinators, herbivores, and predators. Illustration by Amanda Mikyska and Nash Turley.
Article by Cayley Buckner
Latrodectus bishopi: The Red Widow
Ared widow spider in the Ocala National Forest's ancient island scrub area. Photo by Erika Simons.
Red widow spiders are most often found on the fronds of saw palmetto (Serenoa repens) or scrub palmetto (Sabal etonia). Photo by John Bradford.
As an aspiring arachnologist, and someone who has an interest in medically significant animals in Florida, I had heard of a fourth species of widow spider, beyond the native southern black widow (Latrodectus mactans) and northern black widow (L. variolus) or the nonnative, invasive brown widow (L. geometricus). It was the elusive, endemic red widow (L. bishopi) that stimulated my curiosity, but I had yet to see one. However, in 2017 during the annual Florida Native Plant Society conference in Polk County, my luck would change.
Red widow spiders live exclusively in scrub and scrubby flatwoods communities in Central and Southeast Florida, usually making their web in the fold of a live scrub palmetto (Sabal etonia) frond, or in saw palmetto fronds (Serenoa repens) higher than 30cm above the ground (McCrone & Levi, 1964). This ecoregion’s status is listed as critical/endangered due to continued habitat loss from development, which makes the spiders even more difficult to find (Dinerstein, et. al).
It was a cloudless May day at Lake Wales Ridge, whereupon stepping out of an air-conditioned vehicle my shirt was pasted to my back and the insides of my elbows and knees began to itch from trickles of sweat. On this Thursday field trip, Eric Menges, an ecologist from Archbold Biological Station, led us through the Carter Creek tract of the Lake Wales Ridge Wildlife and Environmental Area in Highlands County. Here, the remnants of a fire were still evident from the charred bark and barren branches of the sand live oaks (Quercus geminata) and scrub oaks (Q. inopina).
Walking carefully past a tread-softly (Cnidoscolus stimulosus), I stopped to appreciate both a skyblue lupine (Lupinus diffusus) and a patch of gopher apple (Geobalanus oblongifolius), both of which were in bloom. A wary, male Florida scrub lizard (Sceloporus woodi ) watched us from a charred log before scurrying through the undergrowth passing
Afemale red widow spider tends her egg sacs inside a silken retreat spun among the leaves of myrtle oak (Quercus myrtifolia). Photos by John Bradford, taken at Seabranch State Park, Martin County, Florida.
a piedmont roseling (Callisia rosea) that was flowering. I was photographing a floral rainbow, including Florida Alicia (Chapmannia floridana), whitemouth dayflower (Commelina erecta), and butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa), when I heard another participant call out, “Red widow!”
I excitedly walked over to a scrub palmetto where strong webbing was interspersed within the fold of a semi-horizontal frond. In the lower reaches of the fold, within a densely woven, silk tunnel receding towards the base, I could just make out the curled up form of a red widow in hiding. Dark red legs covered her face, contrasting with the black tear drop of her abdomen. Matching red blotches, the largest nearly elliptical, were rimmed with a bright warning yellow. They trailed diminishingly down to her spinnerets, directing the viewer to a bright red hourglass on her underside.
She was remarkably beautiful and a thrill to personally see, but her presence only led to more questions. Why does she, like all red widows, live only in these scrubby ecosystems? What, specifically, does she eat here? I had heard of them living in live, scrub palmetto fronds, as in this case, but where else might they reside, and do their preferences seem to be consistent throughout their range?
To understand the presence of the spider, we must first understand a bit about the geological prehistory of Florida. Sea level changes over geologic time have played a major role in the formation of Florida’s landscape. During the first part of the Cenozoic Era, Florida was submerged beneath warm, shallow seas. However, during the Oligocene Epoch, a global cooling event lowered sea levels enough for “Florida” to become partially exposed for the first time as a series of islands. These islands can still be seen in modern times, as many of their former locations are denoted by Florida scrub communities (Neill, 1957). Being surrounded by seawater, it was to the advantage of some species of plants and animals that evolved on those former islands to acquire limited dispersal mechanisms (which still persist). This helps explain why relatively small, disjunct populations of some rare Florida endemics have the distributions they have today. Many of those same species still exist on the sites of those former, ancient islands, and red widows are likely one of them.
Other invertebrate species endemic to scrub include beetles (insects in the order Coleoptera). According to a twentyfour-year study by Carrel and Deyrup (2014), native beetles are the main food source for red widows. Only five species of endemic Florida scrub beetles make up 65% of the widow’s prey by weight. Even in late spring, when flowering plants were blossoming and flying bees and wasps (insects in the order Hymenoptera) were found in the webs, they still were second to the mass of beetles the spiders were catching nocturnally. An interesting note is the lack of ants found in their webs, as the majority of Latrodectus species globally have webs that are close to the ground. For many of these species, ants make up a significant portion of their diet. The red widow is an anomaly, along with the northern black widow (L. variolus), both of which make completely arboreal webs.
There is a debate among naturalists in south-central Florida and naturalists in north-central Florida as to what plant L. bishopi prefers as a site for its web. According to the studies conducted at Archbold Biological Station, red widows utilize saw palmetto fronds (Serenoa repens) just as much or more than scrub palmetto fronds (Sabal etonia) (Carrel 2001). However, naturalists familiar with the Ocala National Forest have observed that red widows there use scrub palmettos nearly exclusively (James Buckner & Bob Simons, personal communication). This difference may be due to differing availabilities of saw palmettos vs. scrub palmettos in each region. Although little research has been published concerning which plants red widows usually reside on, it seems that these two plants are the most commonly used, with few exceptions. Personal accounts, though uncommon, exist where red widows were recorded using plants other than palmettos for their webs. These have included a myrtle oak in southeast Florida
Red widow spider egg sacs at Seabranch State Park, Martin County, Florida. Photo by John Bradford.
https://vimeo.com/131925424.
(Bradford n.d.) and one each on a young sand pine and on a myrtle oak in the sand pine scrub of the Ocala National Forest (James Buckner pers. com.), both were during years when red widows were relatively abundant.
One of the reasons why red widows may be seen on vegetation other than scrub or saw palmettos is that they have massive population fluctuations (Carrel & Deyrup, 2014). In their longitudinal study, Carrel and Deyrup saw two seasons of prolific spider numbers and fourteen years where spiders were scarce. Two predators that may limit the population density are the endemic Florida scrub-jay (Aphelocoma coerulescens), which preys upon the adult spiders, and sphecid wasps (Chalybion californicum and Sceliphron caementarium) which parasitize the egg cases (Carrel, 2001). Although it is unclear why their populations fluctuate so greatly, these variations may contribute to red widows having to make their webs in less suitable plants due to competition during boom years.
Red widow spiders have piqued the interest of many people over the past century. Their striking coloration—coupled with their potent venom—evokes a sense of respect and appreciation in all who see one. The more we learn about this species; the more questions continue to arise. When did widows originally show up in the fossil record? Genetically, how related are they to other widow species? What plants other than palmettos can they successfully live in? What causes their population booms and busts? How specialized are their food preferences? What is it about scrub communities that favors their success there? With continued research, perhaps including recorded observations by citizen scientists, we will better be able to understand and appreciate this unique species.
References
Bradford, J. (n.d.). Red widow . Retrieved fromhttp://seabranch.weebly.com/red-widow.html
Carrel, J. E. (2001). Population dynamics of the red widow spider (Araneae: Theridiidae). The Florida Entomologist, 84(3), 385. doi:10.2307/3496497
Carrel, J. E., & Deyrup, M. (2014, March 1). Red widow spiders (Araneae: Theridiidae) prey extensively on scarab beetles endemic in Florida scrub. Retrieved from https://bioone. org/journals/florida-entomologist/volume-97/issue-1/024.097.0155/Red-Widow-Spiders-Araneae--Theridiidae-Prey-Extensively-on-Scarab/10.1653/024.097.0155.full#bibr07
Dinerstein, E., Noss, R., Snodgrass, R., Weakley, A., & Wolfe, K. (n.d.). Florida sand pine scrub. Retrieved from https://www.worldwildlife.org/ecoregions/na0513
McCrone, J. D., & Levi, H. W. (1964). North American widow spiders of the Latrodectus curacaviensis Group (Araneae: Theridiidae). Psyche: AJournal of Entomology, 71(1), 12-27. doi:10.1155/1964/86469
Neill, W. T. (1957). Historical biogeography of present-day Florida. Retrieved from https:// ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00001469/00001/3x
About the Author
Cayley Buckner is a senior at the University of Florida where she is working on dual degrees in English and Natural Resource Conservation, with a minor in Education. She is passionate about outdoor education and is an advocate for equitable education and the intersectionality of socio-environmental justice. Some of her hobbies include reading environmental literature and female authors from the 1600s through the mid-1800s, writing nature poetry, macro photography, and dancing. She is the board president of the Gainesville Old-time Dance Society (G.O.D.S.), is the teaching assistant for Spider Biology at UF, and is an outdoor guide for UF’s Travel and Recreation Program (TRiP). If she is doing something outside of these organizations, she is likely working on her senior thesis or playing with her pet tarantula.
Left to right: Red widow spider young emerging fromtheir egg sacs; young spiders gathering on a saw palmetto frond (Serenoa repens). Photos by John Bradford, taken at Seabranch State Park, Martin County, Florida. To see a video of red widow spiders in action, visit
Article
and illustrations
by Amanda Mikyska and Nash Turley
Bringing your lawn back to life by converting turfgrass to native wildflowers
NATIVE WILDFLOWERS
Turfgrass lawns are ecologically simple and support very little biodiversity, in this example just a few non-native plants and invertebrates, and if you’re lucky a bird now and then. By contrast, a diverse patch of native wildflowers provides the foundation for a complex and diverse food web with a wide variety of pollinators, herbivores, and predators.
MOWED LAWN
Habitat loss is the greatest single threat to biodiversity generally and native plants and pollinators specifically. The vast expanse of turfgrass lawns contribute to that habitat loss but also have the opportunity to be restored to benefit native plants and pollinators.
If your backyard is anything like mine, it looks a lot like your neighbor’s lawn. The grass is green and always cut shorter than four or five inches. Or maybe you live in a building or complex with a courtyard space filled with turfgrass and low maintenance mulch and shrubbery, adding no nutritional value to the insects and critters that have always lived there. Palms decorate the perimeter of houses and buildings, and generally, it looks clean, a concept that has seeped out of our homes to encompass our outdoor space. Like our homes, backyards have become far more desirable when protected from the vast diversity of bugs that run the world. Porches are screened in to keep out bugs, and if bees manage to nest in the backyard, they may be conquered at night with pesticide. However passive, the decision to fill our landscapes with non-native plants stifles the diversity of native bugs because they do not provide proper nutrition or habitat for them. It is unnerving that it is not only possible to tour the yard without interacting with bugs, but is expected. Plants make the vast biodiversity on Earth possible because they are the foundation of food webs. They convert sunlight into energy and then are consumed by bugs, which are consumed by
animals, passing nutrition and energy up the food chain. A turfgrass lawn dissolves the first link in the web because it is a wasteland where few bugs can survive. Some lawns are even more meticulously manicured by built-in irrigation systems, hired professionals who exterminate weeds, and a chemical diet that makes the lawn grow greener and more luscious. Actions that polish front lawns are contagious in neighborhoods, and when every neighbor participates, the scale of the problem becomes enormous.
In addition to being a biological dead space, turfgrass lawns are a massive resource sink. Turfgrass covers about 63,000 square miles in the United States, an area about the size of Georgia (Milesi et al. 2005). If this scale does not strike you, consider that just in this area, 20 trillion gallons of water are used every year (Milesi et al. 2005), compared to the USDA estimate of 27 trillion gallons that are used for all crops grown in the U.S. per year, combined. Turfgrass does not provide the resources to support many pollinators and other insects (Dale et al. 2020), and any insects that do live around turfgrass might be killed by the 60 million pounds of pesticides used in homes and gardens each year (EPA 2012).
The widespread loss of habitat, partly because of lawns, is the leading cause of insect declines. A recent synthesis of studies from around the world found that insect populations are declining by 9% every decade, suggesting there could be only half the insects now than in the 1970s (van Klink et al., 2020). During this time, over 3 billion birds have disappeared from North America, and the loss of their primary source of food, insects, is thought to be an important cause (Rosenberg et al. 2019). There are similar troubling patterns for bees. Of the native bee species in North America that have been studied, over half of them are in severe decline (Kopec & Burd, 2017).
Often when we hear about the plight of bees, it is about colony collapse of honeybees and “Save the Bees” merchandise. This coverage has raised a lot of awareness about pollinators, but honeybees are not at risk of extinction, and they should not be the focus of environmental conservation. Honeybees are non-native species from Eurasia and have been moved around the world by people as we have with cows and chickens. They are economically important in agriculture, but in the wild, they are quite problematic. They can reduce the numbers of native pollinators by competing for resources (pollen and nectar)
This 6-step method for converting turf to native wildflowers is easy and effective at killing the existing non-native vegetation and suppressing weeds. This gives your new native plants a good environment to establish.
and by spreading diseases and parasites (Mallinger et al. 2017). The species that are struggling to survive and will cause adverse environmental impacts if they die are the 300 bee species native to Florida and 3,600 bee species native to the U.S.
With all of this concern about insect declines and the disappearances of pollinators, what can we do? Just as lawn space can be the biggest threat to insect habitats, it has the potential to be the greatest asset. Converting patches of turfgrass to native wildflowers provides the pollen and nectar that pollinators need. The ecology is pretty simple: converted lawn-to-wildflower plots have a greater abundance and diversity of native flowers, which supports a greater abundance and diversity of insect pollinators (Blaauw & Isaacs 2014). Even a small plot (6 feet long, 6 feet wide) of native flowers can attract and help feed a wide diversity of native pollinators and other insects. The native plants feed insect pollinators, herbivores, and detritivores. And those insects can be food for many other animals, including birds as they make the grueling journey from South America to Canada. Native plants are the key to making your small patch of the Earth a part of a functioning ecosystem.
Convert a patch of turfgrass to native wildflowers
Now that you’re ready to convert a patch of turfgrass to native wildflowers, here’s how to make your plot beam with life. Start by prepping your plot three months in advance to get rid of the non-native plants that live there now. Choose at least a 6-by-6 foot area in your yard. Most pollinator-friendly wildflowers that are native to Florida love sunshine, so a plot that gets at least a half-day of full sun is best. This will help your flowers grow and allow you to plant a wide variety. You’ll need to have cardboard, mulch, and water. Cardboard isn’t hard to find, but you’ll need enough to make three layers over your plot. This is your chance to do a little dumpster diving for the environment! Cardboard bins are plentiful behind dollar stores, but avoid colored cardboard, and remove any tape, staples, or stickers.
Mow any existing grass or weeds, then thoroughly water the ground. Next, put down cardboard with lots of overlap between each piece so the grass can’t poke through. Shoot for three layers of boxes (if they are all boxes folded in half) or six individual layers. Water the plot again, soaking through all layers of cardboard on your plot. Finally, weigh down the cardboard with a thick layer of mulch, and let the plot sit for three months or more. This is enough time to kill the grass and for the cardboard to break down.
While the cardboard is doing the hard work for you, it is time to decide which native wildflowers you want to plant. Most big brand stores don’t sell native plants, so check out the Florida Association of Native Nurseries to find the nursery closest to you (https://www.floridanativenurseries.org/). You can always start your plants from seeds in pots if you’re a native plant rockstar.
Three rules to keep in mind when selecting plants
1. Go Native: Given the support native plants provide the local ecosystem, this almost goes without saying. But to hammer the point home, native plants from your part of the world have a good chance of thriving on their own with no water or chemical inputs. Because many insects are specific to the plants they’ ve coevolved with, native plants provide better resources for native insects and will support more biodiversity (Burghardt et al. 2009)
2. Maximize Variety: An ideal pollinator garden has plants flowering throughout the year with a variety of flower shapes and colors. Many pollinators are active only during a small part of the year, so if your garden is not in bloom at that time, the pollinators have to find another food source. Therefore it is important to plant early, middle, and late blooming species. Other pollinators are specialized to a specific family or species of plants, or specific flower shapes, so try to get flowers that vary in size, shape, and color.
3. Right Plant, Right Place: Planting the right species in the right place will make both the plant and its pollinators happy. When selecting your wildflowers, look for species that require the soil and sun conditions similar to where you plan on planting. In addition to the needs of the plant, ensure you are planting something that works with your maintenance and aesthetic preferences. For example, if you want short flowers, be sure to check the height range of the species that interest you.
How to plant
Three months have passed, and you’ve got your native flowers picked out, now it’s time to plant! Dig holes through the mulch and cardboard (it will probably be very decomposed by this point) and transplant your potted plants. Planting in roughly a 1-by-1 foot grid works well, so use about 25 plants for a 6-by-6 foot plot. Make sure to give them a good watering after planting. Hopefully, the mulch and cardboard will suppress the weeds long enough to give your native plants a good head start, and it will help keep your plants from drying out after planting. In the long run, mulch is not necessarily a friend to pollinators because the majority of native bees nest in the ground. So, we recommend you let the mulch break down and keep the ground layer natural going forward.
Of course, if the smothering method seems too slow or complicated, there is a much simpler approach. Just dig out a section of turfgrass and transplant or sow seeds right away, it’s that simple! Be careful with seed mixes as many of them have non-native species in them. Luckily here in Florida, we have the Florida Wildflower Growers Cooperative, a great source to buy native seeds (http://www.floridawildflowers. com/). Whichever method you choose, keep in mind that for the first year your garden plot might need some care, like occasional water if plants look droopy, or some weeding so your flowers do not have to compete for resources. After the plants are healthy and established in your plot, they should not require watering and hopefully will be more robust than any non-native plants that show up.
With each lawn-to-wildflower plot, we chip away at the Georgia-sized expanse of turf that blankets the U.S. Each patch of turfgrass we convert is a step towards changing the culture from one that values uniformity and sterility to one that values complexity, diversity, and life. You can be a leader in this cultural change. The time is now for you to convert a biological dead zone into a thriving ecosystem. Your native plants will feed fungi and beetles with their roots, bees and flies with their flowers, caterpillars on their leaves, and birds with their seeds. That’s just the beginning; all those plant consumers support more life, birds, lizards, spiders, wasps, and on and on. Native plants are the foundation of ecosystems
The art of native ferns
Illustration by Sydney Kenney
About the Artist
Sydney Kenney is a student in the landscape and horticulture programat PalmBeach State College. She writes, “I’ve recently had to transition to fully online courses. For my South Florida native plants class with professor George Rogers, this meant no more weekly field trips to our beautiful, beloved natural areas. One of my hobbies is drawing, so I decided that art would be the perfect mediumto study and appreciate these native plants.”
Book Review
A Step-by-Step Guide to a Florida Native Yard
Review by Jan Allyn
There are more reasons than ever to take the plunge and convert your turfdominated, traditional landscape into a natural paradise. For the last few years Florida has been plagued with water pollution problems: red tide on our coasts, toxic cyanobacteria in our lakes and streams, algae in our springs. Globally, insect populations have crashed, negatively impacting food webs and reducing pollinators for agriculture. In the last 50 years, North America has lost nearly 30% of its birds due to loss of habitat, pesticide use, and fewer insects. The United States is making no progress on reversing climate change. This year carbon dioxide levels hit 417 parts per million, the highest in human history. Solving these problems will require societal changes and systemic policy shifts. But one thing that you can do, personally, to make a difference is to create a sustainable, native plant-dominated, wildlife-friendly landscape in your own yard. By giving up fertilizer and keeping stormwater on your property, you will not be contributing to nitrogen pollution. Planting wildlife-friendly plants and eliminating pesticides will protect insects and their predators, and provide birds and other wild creatures with a place of refuge. Permanently parking the lawnmower and the leaf-blower will reduce fossil fuel use and carbon emissions. But how to start?
A Step-by-Step Guide to a Florida Native Yard Ginny Stibolt and Marjorie Shropshire, 2018 University Press of Florida, $21.95. https://upf.com/book.asp?id=9780813064635
life hedge, and a meadow of native grasses. It helps the reader to make a plan that can be leisurely implemented and tailored to accommodate changing needs and priorities. Some natural landscape guides are more philosophical than practical, and while the introduction does briefly cover the motivations for going native, the information throughout is useful, handson stuff, with lists of references for those who want to know more. The book leads you through the task of assessing your property, noting orientation and infrastructure, high/low and wet/dry spots, types of soil, and existing trees/vegetation. The resulting master sketch can then be used to help you block out areas for the different features you want to add or enhance, so that you can work on them one or a few at a time.
Preventing stormwater runoff occupies more attention than one might expect in such a guide, but the topic is of
Continued on page 15
Most of us have a vague notion of what our perfect native landscape would be like if it was “finished” (is it ever?). Creating a grand plan to get there can be daunting, even for the most devoted native plant nerd. Hiring a landscape designer and installer to “get ‘er done” all at once is great for some people, but for many of us it’s not an option for practical and/or financial reasons. More typically we work piecemeal on our yards, moving toward our imagined ideal landscape in fits and starts.
The book A Step-by-Step Guide to a Florida Native Yard can help anyone who is on such a journey by showing them how to create a roadmap. It addresses planning at different scales, has detailed advice for each stage of the process, and teaches by example, providing a model “improved Florida yard” with features worth emulating: rain barrels, rain gardens, pollinator patches, outdoor rooms, a “freedom lawn”, a lined pond, a wild-
The book leads you through the task of assessing your property, noting orientation and infrastructure, high/low and wet/dry spots, types of soil, and existing trees/vegetation. The resulting master sketch can then be used to help you block out areas for the different features you want to add or enhance.
Plant Profiles: Native Plants for Home Landscapes
Sunshine mimosa (Mimosa strigillosa)
Article and photo by Marjorie Shropshire
Sometimes called sunshine mimosa, Mimosa strigillosa is beloved for its puffy pink one-inch blooms standing on stalks above low-growing feathery leaves that fold up when disturbed. Because it can be mowed and is tolerant of moderate foot traffic, it easy to mix with turfgrass or other low-growing plants in a freedom lawn (a lawn free of over-irrigation, chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides that allows for the presence of a mosaic of different groundcover plants). Sunshine mimosa can also be planted on its own as a drought-tolerant ground cover that grows from 3-6 inches tall, although it becomes sparse in the winter.
The plant forms a mat with overlapping stems, and this combined with its fairly deep root system make it appropriate for planting in areas where erosion control is desired. However, once planted, it can be difficult to dig up, so think carefully before planting. It also is best in areas where it can grow freely without needing much maintenance since its runners can grow into planting beds and become a nuisance.
As member of the bean family, Fabaceae, sunshine mimosa has a symbiotic relationship with Rhizobium bacteria. The bacteria colonize the plant’s root system, forming nodules and capturing nitrogen (N2) which the plant uses for food. While fun to look at, the plant also adds wildlife value to the home landscape. It is likely that birds eat the seeds, and the bee-attracting flowers appear in the spring through summer. The little sulfur butterfly, Pyrisitia lisa, uses Mimosa strigillosa as a larval host plant.
Planting
Mimosa strigillosa’ s natural range covers most of Florida, where it can be found growing on the edges of pine flatwoods. It is also present in disturbed areas like roadsides, probably spread by mowing equipment. In the home landscape it is easy to grow if planted in full sun to light shade.
Spreading quickly from rooted cuttings or potted individuals, sunshine mimosa can also be grown from seed. Scarify seeds by lightly by rubbing them on sandpaper or concrete, and sow them ¼ inch deep in late summer or early fall. If there is no rain, you’ll need to irrigate the seeded area for 2-4 weeks. Plants grown from seed should flower the following summer. If using potted individuals, set plants 2-4 feet apart. Four or five one-gallon plants will be enough to cover 200-300 square feet of planting area. Plants can be added any time of the year, but sunshine mimosa grows fastest in the summer.
References and Further Reading
Atlas of Florida Plants. (2020, November 24). Mimosa strigillosa. https://florida.plantatlas. usf.edu/Plant.aspx?id=2162
Butterflies and Moths of North America. (n.d.). Little Yellow–Pyrisitia lisa. https://www. butterfliesandmoths.org/species/Pyrisitia-lisa
Florida Association of Native Nurseries. (2013, May). Sunshine mimosa, Mimosa strigillosa. https://www.fann.org/info/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/SunshineMimosa-May2013.pdf
Florida Wildflower Foundation. (n.d.). Flower Friday: Sunshine mimosa. https://flawildflowers.org/flower-friday-mimosa-strigillosa/
Stibolt, Ginny. (2011, August 22). Garden design round table: Sunshine mimosa, a lawn alternative for Florida. Florida Native Plant Society. http://fnpsblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/ garden-design-round-table-sunshine.html
The Institute for Regional Conservation. (n.d.) Natives for your neighborhood. Powderpuff, sunshine mimosa. https://www.regionalconservation.org/beta/nfyn/plantdetail. asp?tx=Mimostri
Wagner, Stephen C. (2011). Biological Nitrogen Fixation. Nature. https://www.nature.com/ scitable/knowledge/library/biological-nitrogen-fixation-23570419/
Sunshine mimosa's bright pink flowers stand on stalks above the low-growing feathery foliage. Photo by Marjorie Shropshire.
Book Review: Step-by-Step to a Florida Native Yard
Continued from page 13
enormous importance. Florida’s nutrient problem is evident in our slimy, algae-covered waterways. Even if you’re not fertilizing your plants, keeping stormwater on your property will reduce erosion and nitrogen pollution. Rain barrels, rain gardens, and strategically placed berms and swales can help you cope with the feast-or-famine nature of Florida’s wet and dry seasons.
Trees are such prominent and permanent fixtures in a landscape that it’s important to choose them wisely, place them thoughtfully, and install them carefully. The book suggests things to consider when deciding what species of tree to plant, gives tips on choosing healthy specimens with good structure, and recommends purchasing small to medium-sized trees instead of large ones, as they are more likely to survive and thrive.
One of the challenges for urban native plant enthusiasts is striking the right balance between neatness and disorder. We want a bit of the chaos of nature because it makes a garden lively and exciting, bringing unexpected and delightful discoveries –but not too much chaos, or we end up with a weed-choked, out of control thicket that draws the ire of neighbors and the HOA. This dilemma is addressed in a thoughtful discussion of public perception of native gardens. Recommended solutions include creating wild areas in out-of-the-way spots and using neat
borders, trimmed hedges, or rows of grasses or herbaceous plants to communicate care and intentionality to passersby. Both new and experienced native plant gardeners will find things to appreciate in A Step-by-Step Guide to a Florida Native Yard. It’s the nuts and bolts guidebook we’ve needed for a long time in the native plant movement. While field guides abound, there are few good landscaping books that are focused on Florida. This one is well-organized, wonderfully illustrated, and provides an annotated plant list and a handy index. It explains how to assess your property, make a plan, and gradually create a natural oasis by selecting and implementing desirable, sustainable landscape features. It uses sidebars, tips, and examples to instruct and encourage. It tells readers why a feature or technique is valuable, not just what to do and how to do it. Lists of additional resources are provided for those who want to dig deeper into a topic. No matter where you are in the process of creating a native landscape, this book is worth adding to your library.
About the Author
Jan Allyn has been a board member of the Pinellas Chapter of FNPS since 2002. She is the content manager for the USF Water Institute which produces the Atlas of Florida Plants as well as a suite of Water Atlas websites for central and southwest Florida.
Bringing your lawn back to life by converting turfgrass to native wildflowers
Continued from page 11
and the key to supporting the rest of the glorious biodiversity on Earth. We can draw in the wonders of nature to our lawns, and all that’s needed is some cardboard, a few native plants, a vision of a complex and verdant landscape, and the motivation to bring it into existence.
References
Blaauw, B.R., Isaacs, R. 2014. Larger patches of diverse floral resources increase insect pollinator density, diversity, and their pollination of native wildflowers. Basic and Applied Ecology. 18(8), 701-711.
Burghardt, K. T., Tallamy, D. W., & Shriver, G, W. 2009. Impact of native plants on bird and butterfly biodiversity in suburban landscapes. Conservation biology, 23(1), 219-224.
Dale, A. G., Perry, R. L., Cope, G. C., & Benda, N. 2020. Floral abundance and richness drive beneficial arthropod conservation and biological control on golf courses. Urban Ecosystems, 23(1), 55-66.
Environmental Protection Agency. Pesticides industry sales and usage 2008 - 2012 market estimates. Table 3.2. https://www.epa.gov/pesticides/pesticides-industry-sales-and-usage-2008-2012-market-estimates
Milesi, C., Running, S. W., Elvidge, C. D., Dietz, J. B., Tuttle, B. T., & Nemani, R. R. 2005. Mapping and modeling the biogeochemical cycling of turf grasses in the United States. Environmental Management, 36(3), 426-438. Kopec, K, & Burd L. A. 2017. Pollinators in peril: Asystematic status review of North
American and Hawaiian native bees. https://biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/native pollinators/pdfs/Pollinators in Peril.pdf
Mallinger, R. E., Gaines-Day, H. R., & Gratton, C. 2017. Do managed bees have negative effects on wild bees?: Asystematic review of the literature. PLOS ONE , 12(12), e0189268. Rosenberg, K. V., et. al. 2019. Decline of the North American avifauna. Science, 366(6461), 120-124.
USDA. Results fromthe 2018 Irrigation and Water Management Survey https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Highlights/2019/2017Census Irrigation and WaterManagement.pdf
van Klink, R., Bowler, D. E., Gongalsky, K. B., Swengel, A. B., Gentile, A., & Chase, J. M. 2020. Meta-analysis reveals declines in terrestrial but increases in freshwater insect abundances. Science, 368(6489), 417-420.
About the Author
Nash Turley is an ecologist, naturalist, and the founder of Lawn to Wildflowers (www. lawntowildflowers.org). He works as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Central Florida, advancing the movement returning outdoor spaces to native plant species. Nash also creates videos and podcasts aimed at communicating ecological research and natural history to a general audience, which can be found at www.nashturley.org.
Amanda Mikyska is a Lab Manager at the University of Central Florida, and assists on projects including Lawn to Wildflowers and studying viral integration in Hymenoptera. Amanda also covers new research in neuroscience for the scientific networking site Labroots (www.labroots.com).
The Florida Native Plant Society POBox 278
Melbourne FL 32902-0278
U.S.
Jacksonville FL PERMIT NO. 877 FNPS Chapters and Representatives
CHAPTER
REPRESENTATIVE E-MAIL
1. Broward............................................ Richard Brownscombe ................. richard@brownscombe.net
2. Citrus Gail Taylor gfgtaylor55@gmail.com
3. Coccoloba Lucy Breitung lfbreitung@gmail.com
4. Conradina Martha Steuart mwsteuart@bellsouth.net
5. Cuplet Fern Mark Kateli cupletfern@gmail.com
6. Dade Kurt Birchenough kbirc001@fiu.edu
7. Eugenia David L. Martin cymopterus@icloud.com
8. Heartland Gregory L. Thomas enviroscidad@yahoo.com
9. Hernando Janet Grabowski jggrenada@aol.com
10. Ixia Jessica Spencer botanybabe28@yahoo.com
11. Lake Beautyberry Patricia Burgos patriciab1724@gmail.com
12. Longleaf Pine................................ Gabriel Campbell ................................ camp5595@ufl.edu
13 Magnolia ......................................... Jan Blue ................................................... doctorsyntax@outlook.com
14. Mangrove ....................................... Steve Gustafson................................. gorightgus1@icloud.com
15. Marion Big Scrub ....................... Deborah Lynn Curry......................... figure it out@earthlink.net
16. Martin County ............................. Dianna Wentink.................................. dw18hpc@gmail.com
17. Naples .............................................. Kara Driscoll ......................................... k.dreamflow@gmail.com
18. Nature Coast ................................ Diane Hayes Caruso......................... dhayescaruso@hotmail.com
19. PalmBeach County ................. Helen Laurence ................................. helen.laurence@gmail.com
20. Passionflower............................... Melanie Simon..................................... melanievsimon2@gmail.com
21. Pawpaw .......................................... Karen Walter......................................... karenlw72@gmail.com
22 Paynes Prairie ............................. Sandi Saurers ...................................... sandisaurers@yahoo.com
23. Pine Lily Tayler Figueroa harper.tkf@gmail.com
24. Pinellas David Perkey dperkey@hotmail.com
25. Sarracenia Jeannie Brodhead jeannieb9345@gmail.com
26. Sea Oats Judith D. Zinn jeryjudy@valinet.com
27. Sea Rocket Greg Hendricks gatorgregh@gmail.com
28. Serenoa Erica Timmerman timmerme3@gmail.com
29. Sparkleberry Carol Sullivan csullivan12@windstream.net
30. Suncoast Virginia Overstreet voverstr@tampabay.rr.com
31. Sweetbay Jonnie Smallman jsmallman2@gmail.com
32. Tarflower Julie Becker julie.b455@gmail.com
33. The Villages.................................... Gary Babic ............................................. gtbabic@hotmail.com
Contact the Florida Native Plant Society POBox 278, Melbourne, FL32902-0278. Phone: (321) 271-6702. Email: info@fnps.org Online: www.fnps.org
To join FNPS: Contact your local Chapter Representative, call, write, or e-mail FNPS, or join online at www.fnps.org
Contact the PALMETTOEditor: Marjorie Shropshire, Visual Key Creative, Inc. Email: pucpuggy@bellsouth.net Phone: (772) 285-4286