Echinacea laevigata
Encyclopedia
Echinacea laevigata, the smooth purple coneflower, is an Endangered Species Act federally listed
endangered species
of plant found in the piedmont
of the southeastern United States
. Most populations are found on roadsides and other open areas with plenty of sunlight, often on calcium
- and magnesium
- rich soil
s.
Its current range is within the states of Virginia
, North Carolina
, South Carolina
, and Georgia
, and it was historically also found in Pennsylvania
and Maryland
. It has been rare as long as it has been known, but a number of human activities and associated processes have reduced its range further. Today there are about 100 occurrences, and many of these are in poor condition. The amount of appropriate habitat available for this plant has been greatly reduced and it continues to decline.
This is a rhizomatous
perennial herb that resembles its close relative, the common echinacea
(Echinacea purpurea). The two can be told apart by the leaves, which are cordate (heart-shaped
) in the common species. E. laevigata grows up to about 1.5 meters in height with a mostly naked, smooth, leafless stem. Any leaves are roughly lance-shaped. On top of the stem is a flower head
containing narrow pink or purplish ray florets up to 8 centimeters long. The florets droop away from the center of the head. The small, tubular disc florets in the center are dark purple in color. Blooming occurs in May through July. The plant is pollinated
by a number of insects, including honeybee (Apis mellifera), bumblebees (Bombus spp.), the bees Psithyrus citrinus and Xylocopa virginica
, a number of butterflies
, and Lygaeus kalmii, a bug
. The fruit is an achene
about half a centimeter long which is likely dispersed
by birds and small mammals that collect them for food. Some vegetative reproduction
has been observed with more than one stem coming from a shared rhizome or aboveground rosette of leaves.
The natural habitat for this species of plant is sunny openings in forested habitat. Open areas of this kind were made by wildfire
, fires set by Native Americans
, and the grazing
activity of animals. The plant's preferred soils are rich in calcium and magnesium, and include limestone
and marble
, gabbro
, and diabase
. Plants that share the habitat included eastern red cedar
(Juniperus virginiana) and rattlesnake master
(Eryngium yuccifolium). There are several species of oak
that occur, but these are stunted such that sunlight reaches the understory
. When human impacts began to reduce the amount of forest habitat remaining in the region, the plant survived in other open, sunny habitat types, such as cedar barrens, clearcuts
, roadsides, cleared areas around utility equipment, and limestone bluffs. Two thirds of the populations known since the plant was first discovered are now gone.
Populations of the plant were lost when the habitat was destroyed, or when it was degraded as natural processes of disturbance were prevented. The plant requires open habitat where it can receive sunlight. When fire suppression is practiced, the habitat becomes overgrown, and the open areas close; this has led to the extirpation
of a number of historical populations. Habitat was destroyed outright during development, agricultural operations
, road construction, and installation of utilities such as gas lines.
Continuing threats to the species include further destruction and degradation of the land, collecting of the plant by flora enthusiasts, vandalism
, herbicide
s, and exotic plant species
. When the plant was listed as an endangered species in 1992, most of the populations were small, with many containing fewer than 100 plants each, and half were located on roadsides where they are vulnerable to destruction. There is a fear that this plant may be targeted for commercial harvest in the pharmaceutical echinacea
trade, but there is little evidence of this threat so far.
Conservation
efforts underway include research on the most effective method of restoring the natural cycle of disturbance to the land, for example, by initiating controlled burn
s.
Endangered Species Act
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is one of the dozens of United States environmental laws passed in the 1970s. Signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 28, 1973, it was designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and...
endangered species
Endangered species
An endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters...
of plant found in the piedmont
Piedmont (United States)
The Piedmont is a plateau region located in the eastern United States between the Atlantic Coastal Plain and the main Appalachian Mountains, stretching from New Jersey in the north to central Alabama in the south. The Piedmont province is a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian division...
of the southeastern United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Most populations are found on roadsides and other open areas with plenty of sunlight, often on calcium
Calcium
Calcium is the chemical element with the symbol Ca and atomic number 20. It has an atomic mass of 40.078 amu. Calcium is a soft gray alkaline earth metal, and is the fifth-most-abundant element by mass in the Earth's crust...
- and magnesium
Magnesium
Magnesium is a chemical element with the symbol Mg, atomic number 12, and common oxidation number +2. It is an alkaline earth metal and the eighth most abundant element in the Earth's crust and ninth in the known universe as a whole...
- rich soil
Soil
Soil is a natural body consisting of layers of mineral constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent materials in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics...
s.
Its current range is within the states of Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
, and Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
, and it was historically also found in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
and Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
. It has been rare as long as it has been known, but a number of human activities and associated processes have reduced its range further. Today there are about 100 occurrences, and many of these are in poor condition. The amount of appropriate habitat available for this plant has been greatly reduced and it continues to decline.
This is a rhizomatous
Rhizome
In botany and dendrology, a rhizome is a characteristically horizontal stem of a plant that is usually found underground, often sending out roots and shoots from its nodes...
perennial herb that resembles its close relative, the common echinacea
Echinacea purpurea
Echinacea purpurea is a species of flowering plant in the genus Echinacea. Its cone-shaped flowering heads are usually, but not always purple. It is native to eastern North America and present to some extent in the wild in much of the eastern, southeastern and midwest United States...
(Echinacea purpurea). The two can be told apart by the leaves, which are cordate (heart-shaped
Heart (symbol)
The heart has long been used as a symbol to refer to the spiritual, emotional, moral, and in the past, also intellectual core of a human being...
) in the common species. E. laevigata grows up to about 1.5 meters in height with a mostly naked, smooth, leafless stem. Any leaves are roughly lance-shaped. On top of the stem is a flower head
Head (botany)
The capitulum is considered the most derived form of inflorescence. Flower heads found outside Asteraceae show lesser degrees of specialization....
containing narrow pink or purplish ray florets up to 8 centimeters long. The florets droop away from the center of the head. The small, tubular disc florets in the center are dark purple in color. Blooming occurs in May through July. The plant is pollinated
Pollination
Pollination is the process by which pollen is transferred in plants, thereby enabling fertilisation and sexual reproduction. Pollen grains transport the male gametes to where the female gamete are contained within the carpel; in gymnosperms the pollen is directly applied to the ovule itself...
by a number of insects, including honeybee (Apis mellifera), bumblebees (Bombus spp.), the bees Psithyrus citrinus and Xylocopa virginica
Eastern carpenter bee
The common eastern carpenter bee, Xylocopa virginica, is the carpenter bee most often encountered in the eastern United States. It is often mistaken for a large bumblebee species, as they are similar in size and coloring...
, a number of butterflies
Butterfly
A butterfly is a mainly day-flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, which includes the butterflies and moths. Like other holometabolous insects, the butterfly's life cycle consists of four parts: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Most species are diurnal. Butterflies have large, often brightly coloured...
, and Lygaeus kalmii, a bug
Hemiptera
Hemiptera is an order of insects most often known as the true bugs , comprising around 50,000–80,000 species of cicadas, aphids, planthoppers, leafhoppers, shield bugs, and others...
. The fruit is an achene
Achene
An achene is a type of simple dry fruit produced by many species of flowering plants. Achenes are monocarpellate and indehiscent...
about half a centimeter long which is likely dispersed
Seed dispersal
Seed dispersal is the movement or transport of seeds away from the parent plant. Plants have limited mobility and consequently rely upon a variety of dispersal vectors to transport their propagules, including both abiotic and biotic vectors. Seeds can be dispersed away from the parent plant...
by birds and small mammals that collect them for food. Some vegetative reproduction
Vegetative reproduction
Vegetative reproduction is a form of asexual reproduction in plants. It is a process by which new individuals arise without production of seeds or spores...
has been observed with more than one stem coming from a shared rhizome or aboveground rosette of leaves.
The natural habitat for this species of plant is sunny openings in forested habitat. Open areas of this kind were made by wildfire
Wildfire
A wildfire is any uncontrolled fire in combustible vegetation that occurs in the countryside or a wilderness area. Other names such as brush fire, bushfire, forest fire, desert fire, grass fire, hill fire, squirrel fire, vegetation fire, veldfire, and wilkjjofire may be used to describe the same...
, fires set by Native Americans
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
, and the grazing
Grazing
Grazing generally describes a type of feeding, in which a herbivore feeds on plants , and also on other multicellular autotrophs...
activity of animals. The plant's preferred soils are rich in calcium and magnesium, and include limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
and marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
, gabbro
Gabbro
Gabbro refers to a large group of dark, coarse-grained, intrusive mafic igneous rocks chemically equivalent to basalt. The rocks are plutonic, formed when molten magma is trapped beneath the Earth's surface and cools into a crystalline mass....
, and diabase
Diabase
Diabase or dolerite is a mafic, holocrystalline, subvolcanic rock equivalent to volcanic basalt or plutonic gabbro. In North American usage, the term diabase refers to the fresh rock, whilst elsewhere the term dolerite is used for the fresh rock and diabase refers to altered material...
. Plants that share the habitat included eastern red cedar
Juniperus virginiana
Juniperus virginiana is a species of juniper native to eastern North America, from southeastern Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, east of the Great Plains...
(Juniperus virginiana) and rattlesnake master
Eryngium yuccifolium
Eryngium yuccifolium is a common herbaceous perennial plant, native to the tallgrass prairies of central and eastern North America, from Minnesota east to Ohio and south to Texas and Florida. In the Chicago Region this species has a coefficient of conservatism of 9...
(Eryngium yuccifolium). There are several species of oak
Oak
An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...
that occur, but these are stunted such that sunlight reaches the understory
Understory
Understory is the term for the area of a forest which grows at the lowest height level below the forest canopy. Plants in the understory consist of a mixture of seedlings and saplings of canopy trees together with understory shrubs and herbs...
. When human impacts began to reduce the amount of forest habitat remaining in the region, the plant survived in other open, sunny habitat types, such as cedar barrens, clearcuts
Clearcutting
Clearcutting, or clearfelling, is a controversial forestry/logging practice in which most or all trees in an area are uniformly cut down. Clearcutting, along with shelterwood and seed tree harvests, is used by foresters to create certain types of forest ecosystems and to promote select species that...
, roadsides, cleared areas around utility equipment, and limestone bluffs. Two thirds of the populations known since the plant was first discovered are now gone.
Populations of the plant were lost when the habitat was destroyed, or when it was degraded as natural processes of disturbance were prevented. The plant requires open habitat where it can receive sunlight. When fire suppression is practiced, the habitat becomes overgrown, and the open areas close; this has led to the extirpation
Local extinction
Local extinction, also known as extirpation, is the condition of a species which ceases to exist in the chosen geographic area of study, though it still exists elsewhere...
of a number of historical populations. Habitat was destroyed outright during development, agricultural operations
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
, road construction, and installation of utilities such as gas lines.
Continuing threats to the species include further destruction and degradation of the land, collecting of the plant by flora enthusiasts, vandalism
Vandalism
Vandalism is the behaviour attributed originally to the Vandals, by the Romans, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything beautiful or venerable...
, herbicide
Herbicide
Herbicides, also commonly known as weedkillers, are pesticides used to kill unwanted plants. Selective herbicides kill specific targets while leaving the desired crop relatively unharmed. Some of these act by interfering with the growth of the weed and are often synthetic "imitations" of plant...
s, and exotic plant species
Introduced species
An introduced species — or neozoon, alien, exotic, non-indigenous, or non-native species, or simply an introduction, is a species living outside its indigenous or native distributional range, and has arrived in an ecosystem or plant community by human activity, either deliberate or accidental...
. When the plant was listed as an endangered species in 1992, most of the populations were small, with many containing fewer than 100 plants each, and half were located on roadsides where they are vulnerable to destruction. There is a fear that this plant may be targeted for commercial harvest in the pharmaceutical echinacea
Herbalism
Herbalism is a traditional medicinal or folk medicine practice based on the use of plants and plant extracts. Herbalism is also known as botanical medicine, medical herbalism, herbal medicine, herbology, herblore, and phytotherapy...
trade, but there is little evidence of this threat so far.
Conservation
Conservation biology
Conservation biology is the scientific study of the nature and status of Earth's biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats, and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction...
efforts underway include research on the most effective method of restoring the natural cycle of disturbance to the land, for example, by initiating controlled burn
Controlled burn
Controlled or prescribed burning, also known as hazard reduction burning or Swailing is a technique sometimes used in forest management, farming, prairie restoration or greenhouse gas abatement. Fire is a natural part of both forest and grassland ecology and controlled fire can be a tool for...
s.