Lysimachia asperulifolia
Encyclopedia
Lysimachia asperulifolia (orth. var. L. asperulaefolia) is a rare species of flowering plant in the Myrsinaceae
known by the common name rough-leaved loosestrife and roughleaf yellow loosestrife. It is endemic to the Atlantic coastal plain
in North Carolina
and northern South Carolina
in the United States, where there are 64 known populations. It is a federally listed endangered species
of the United States.
perennial herb growing erect to a maximum height around 60 to 70 centimeters. The lower stem is pinkish in color and ribbed, and the upper stem is yellowish and lacks ribs. The stem in the inflorescence
is covered in reddish glands. The leaves are green, lance-shaped, and up to 5 centimeters long by 2 wide. They are borne in whorls of three or four around the stem, or sometimes in opposite pairs. The leaves are not rough in texture as the common name would suggest. Smaller, tougher, brown-colored leaves are opposite or borne in whorls of up to 7 near the stem base. The top of the stem is occupied by the inflorescence, which is a raceme
of star-shaped yellow flowers interspersed with leaflike green bract
s. Each flower has 4 to 7, but usually five, yellow petals with wide bases and pointed, ragged tips. The petals and green sepal
s are dotted with red glands and streaked with reddish resin canals. The fruit is a red-mottled straw-colored capsule a few millimeters in length.
s, sandhill
s, pine flatwoods
and pine savannas
. It is most commonly found in open areas in the ecotone
between longleaf pine uplands
and pond pine pocosins. The soil is seasonally wet to waterlogged or submerged, low in nutrients, rich in peat
over sandy substrates. The plant is found in sections of these habitat types which, in their pristine state, are openings in a dense layer of shrubs which are kept open by severe periodic wildfire
s. Fire prevents ecological succession
, maintaining a type of ecosystem
in which the taller vegetation is kept small and sparse, allowing the herb layer to flourish in the sun. Trees, shrubs, and ferns in the area include Aronia arbutifolia (chokeberry), Clethra alnifolia
(summersweet), Cyrilla racemiflora
(titi), Fothergilla gardenii
(dwarf fothergilla), Ilex glabra
(Appalachian tea), Magnolia virginiana (sweetbay), Osmunda cinnamomea (cinnamon fern), Persea palustris
(swampbay), Symplocos tinctoria (yellowwood), and Vaccinium
species (wild blueberries). Herbs, grasses, and moss
es associated with this ecosystem include Andropogon glomeratus
(bushy bluestem), Aristida stricta
(wiregrass), Drosera intermedia
(oblong-leaved sundew), Drosera capillaris (pink sundew), Lachnanthes caroliniana (redroot), Peltandra sagittifolia
(spoon flower), Sarracenia flava
(yellow pitcher plant), and Sphagnum
species (sphagnum mosses).
In the 1980s the only known viable populations of the plant were located in Green Swamp Nature Preserve
and the Croatan National Forest
, and at Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point
. Another was located on Fort Bragg. A program of prescribed fire was instituted on military base territory in the region to preserve habitat for the Red-cockaded Woodpecker
(Picoides borealis). This habitat was appropriate for the plant as well, and as a result some additional populations appeared where it had been crowded out by vegetation overgrowth before. One such population is located at Camp Lejeune, and more occurrences grew at Fort Bragg. The South Carolina occurrence is located on Fort Jackson. In 1995 there were 64 populations known. Because the plant usually reproduces vegetatively
by sprouting from its rhizome, creating clones, what appears to be a large population may actually be relatively few genetic individuals with many cloned stems above the ground.
is prevented. As fire suppression practices have been implemented, the pocosins, sandhills, and swamps have overgrown with brush and woody vegetation. Shrubs are not kept back and they grow to large sizes and shade out the smaller plants in the herb layer. Even where fire is prescribed or allowed to take place, pocosins do not burn thoroughly enough to remove the heavy organic layers that accumulate there. Activities involved with fire may also be detrimental, as firebreak
s are often plowed in the very ecotone openings where the plant most often grows. Agriculture
, including pine plantations, and other types of operations alter the hydrology
of the wetlands, making conditions unsuitable for this and other native plants. Many of the populations are located on military bases and are vulnerable to destruction during military operations.
Myrsinaceae
Myrsinaceae, or the Myrsine family, is a rather large family from the order Ericales. It consists of 35 genera and about 1000 species....
known by the common name rough-leaved loosestrife and roughleaf yellow loosestrife. It is endemic to the Atlantic coastal plain
Atlantic Coastal Plain
The Atlantic coastal plain has both low elevation and low relief, but it is also a relatively flat landform extending from the New York Bight southward to a Georgia/Florida section of the Eastern Continental Divide, which demarcates the plain from the ACF River Basin in the Gulf Coastal Plain to...
in 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...
and northern 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...
in the United States, where there are 64 known populations. It is a federally listed 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 the United States.
Description
This plant is a rhizomatousRhizome
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 growing erect to a maximum height around 60 to 70 centimeters. The lower stem is pinkish in color and ribbed, and the upper stem is yellowish and lacks ribs. The stem in the inflorescence
Inflorescence
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Strictly, it is the part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed and which is accordingly modified...
is covered in reddish glands. The leaves are green, lance-shaped, and up to 5 centimeters long by 2 wide. They are borne in whorls of three or four around the stem, or sometimes in opposite pairs. The leaves are not rough in texture as the common name would suggest. Smaller, tougher, brown-colored leaves are opposite or borne in whorls of up to 7 near the stem base. The top of the stem is occupied by the inflorescence, which is a raceme
Raceme
A raceme is a type of inflorescence that is unbranched and indeterminate and bears pedicellate flowers — flowers having short floral stalks called pedicels — along the axis. In botany, axis means a shoot, in this case one bearing the flowers. In a raceme, the oldest flowers are borne...
of star-shaped yellow flowers interspersed with leaflike green bract
Bract
In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis, or cone scale. Bracts are often different from foliage leaves. They may be smaller, larger, or of a different color, shape, or texture...
s. Each flower has 4 to 7, but usually five, yellow petals with wide bases and pointed, ragged tips. The petals and green sepal
Sepal
A sepal is a part of the flower of angiosperms . Collectively the sepals form the calyx, which is the outermost whorl of parts that form a flower. Usually green, sepals have the typical function of protecting the petals when the flower is in bud...
s are dotted with red glands and streaked with reddish resin canals. The fruit is a red-mottled straw-colored capsule a few millimeters in length.
Habitat
This herb grows in a number of plant communities on the coastal plains of southern North Carolina and northern South Carolina, including pocosinPocosin
Pocosin is a term for a type of palustrine wetland with deep, acidic, sandy, peat soils. Groundwater saturates the soil except during brief seasonal dry spells and during prolonged droughts...
s, sandhill
Sandhill
A sandhill is a type of ecological community or xeric wildfire-maintained ecosystem. It is not the same as a sand dune. It features very short fire return intervals, one to five years. Without fire, sandhills undergo ecological succession and become more oak dominated.Entisols are the typical...
s, pine flatwoods
Flatwoods
Flatwoods, Pineywoods, Longleaf Pine-Wiregrass Ecosystem refers to an ecological community in the Southeastern coastal plain of North America...
and pine savannas
Eastern savannas of the United States
The eastern savannas of the United States covered large portions of the east side of the continent until the early 20th century. These were in a fire ecology of open grassland and forests with low ground cover of herbs and grasses....
. It is most commonly found in open areas in the ecotone
Ecotone
An ecotone is a transition area between two biomes but different patches of the landscape, such as forest and grassland. It may be narrow or wide, and it may be local or regional...
between longleaf pine uplands
Upland and lowland (freshwater ecology)
In studies of the ecology of freshwater rivers, habitats are classified as upland and lowland.-Definitions:Upland habitats are cold, clear, rocky, fast flowing rivers in mountainous areas; lowland habitats are warm, slow flowing rivers found in relatively flat lowland areas, with water that is...
and pond pine pocosins. The soil is seasonally wet to waterlogged or submerged, low in nutrients, rich in peat
Peat
Peat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation matter or histosol. Peat forms in wetland bogs, moors, muskegs, pocosins, mires, and peat swamp forests. Peat is harvested as an important source of fuel in certain parts of the world...
over sandy substrates. The plant is found in sections of these habitat types which, in their pristine state, are openings in a dense layer of shrubs which are kept open by severe periodic 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...
s. Fire prevents ecological succession
Ecological succession
Ecological succession, is the phenomenon or process by which a community progressively transforms itself until a stable community is formed. It is a fundamental concept in ecology, and refers to more or less predictable and orderly changes in the composition or structure of an ecological community...
, maintaining a type of ecosystem
Ecosystem
An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving , physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight....
in which the taller vegetation is kept small and sparse, allowing the herb layer to flourish in the sun. Trees, shrubs, and ferns in the area include Aronia arbutifolia (chokeberry), Clethra alnifolia
Clethra alnifolia
Clethra alnifolia , is a flowering plant in the genus Clethra, native to eastern North America from southern Nova Scotia and Maine south to northern Florida, and west to eastern Texas....
(summersweet), Cyrilla racemiflora
Cyrilla
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 , south through the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America to northern Brazil and...
(titi), Fothergilla gardenii
Fothergilla gardenii
Fothergilla gardenii is a flowering plant in the Hamamelidaceae family.-References:*Thomas G. Ranney and Nathan P. Lynch, Clarifying Taxonomy and Nomenclature of Fothergilla Cultivars and Hybrids, HORTSCIENCE 42:470–473. 2007....
(dwarf fothergilla), Ilex glabra
Ilex glabra
Ilex glabra, also known as Appalachian Tea, Dye-leaves, Evergreen Winterberry, Gallberry, Inkberry, is a species of holly native to the Eastern and the South Central United States and southern Canada . This plant is often used as an ornamental plant...
(Appalachian tea), Magnolia virginiana (sweetbay), Osmunda cinnamomea (cinnamon fern), Persea palustris
Persea palustris
Persea palustris, commonly known as the swampbay, is a tree native to eastern North America, from Texas eastwards to Florida and then extending north to Delaware, mostly on the Gulf Coastal Plain and Atlantic Coastal Plain but extending into the Piedmont somewhat. Its range also includes the...
(swampbay), Symplocos tinctoria (yellowwood), and Vaccinium
Vaccinium
Vaccinium is a genus of shrubs or dwarf shrubs in the plant Family Ericaceae. The fruit of many species are eaten by humans and some are of commercial importance, including the cranberry, blueberry, bilberry or whortleberry, lingonberry or cowberry, and huckleberry...
species (wild blueberries). Herbs, grasses, and moss
Moss
Mosses are small, soft plants that are typically 1–10 cm tall, though some species are much larger. They commonly grow close together in clumps or mats in damp or shady locations. They do not have flowers or seeds, and their simple leaves cover the thin wiry stems...
es associated with this ecosystem include Andropogon glomeratus
Andropogon glomeratus
Andropogon glomeratus is a species of grass known by the common names bushy bluestem and bushy beardgrass. This grass reaches heights approaching two meters-6 feet and has large, fluffy cream-colored inflorescences. Each dense, tufted inflorescence has several pairs of hairy spikelets. The leaves...
(bushy bluestem), Aristida stricta
Aristida stricta
Aristida stricta is a warm-season grass, native to North America, that dominates understory vegetation in sandhills and flatwoods coastal plain ecosystems of the Southeastern United States...
(wiregrass), Drosera intermedia
Drosera intermedia
Drosera intermedia, commonly known as the oblong-leaved sundew or spoonleaf sundew, is an insectivorous plant species belonging to the sundew genus. It is a temperate or tropical species native to Europe, southeastern Canada, the eastern half of the United States, Cuba and northern South America.-...
(oblong-leaved sundew), Drosera capillaris (pink sundew), Lachnanthes caroliniana (redroot), Peltandra sagittifolia
Peltandra sagittifolia
Peltandra sagittifolia is a species of plant in the genus Peltandra. It is commonly known as the Spoon flower or the White arrow arum, and is the least common Araceae plant in North America....
(spoon flower), Sarracenia flava
Sarracenia flava
Sarracenia flava, the Yellow pitcher plant, is a carnivorous plant in the family Sarraceniaceae. Like all the Sarraceniaceae, it is native to the New World. Its range extends from southern Alabama, through Florida and Georgia, to the coastal plains of southern Virginia, North Carolina and South...
(yellow pitcher plant), and Sphagnum
Sphagnum
Sphagnum is a genus of between 151 and 350 species of mosses commonly called peat moss, due to its prevalence in peat bogs and mires. A distinction is made between sphagnum moss, the live moss growing on top of a peat bog on one hand, and sphagnum peat moss or sphagnum peat on the other, the...
species (sphagnum mosses).
In the 1980s the only known viable populations of the plant were located in Green Swamp Nature Preserve
Green Swamp (North Carolina)
The Green Swamp is a swamp that lies in Brunswick and Columbus counties in North Carolina. An unusual carnivorous plant known as the Venus Flytrap is found within this swamp. North Carolina laws prohibit the removal of these plants from their habitat....
and the Croatan National Forest
Croatan National Forest
The Croatan National Forest is a U.S. National Forest, was established on July 29, 1936, and is located on the Atlantic coast of North Carolina. It is administered by the United States Forest Service, a part of the United States Department of Agriculture...
, and at Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point
Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point
Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point is the largest military terminal in the world. It serves as a transfer point between rail, trucks, and ships for the import and export of weapons, ammunition, explosives and military equipment for United States Army...
. Another was located on Fort Bragg. A program of prescribed fire was instituted on military base territory in the region to preserve habitat for the Red-cockaded Woodpecker
Red-cockaded Woodpecker
The Red-cockaded Woodpecker is a woodpecker found in southeastern North America.- Description :About the size of the Northern Cardinal, it is approximately 8.5 in. long, with a wingspan of about 14 in. and a weight of about 1.5 ounces...
(Picoides borealis). This habitat was appropriate for the plant as well, and as a result some additional populations appeared where it had been crowded out by vegetation overgrowth before. One such population is located at Camp Lejeune, and more occurrences grew at Fort Bragg. The South Carolina occurrence is located on Fort Jackson. In 1995 there were 64 populations known. Because the plant usually reproduces vegetatively
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...
by sprouting from its rhizome, creating clones, what appears to be a large population may actually be relatively few genetic individuals with many cloned stems above the ground.
Environmental Issues
The main threat to the species is the loss and degradation of its habitat. Much of the land in the region has been developed, the wetlands drained and dried to create land for residential, industrial, and recreational purposes. Habitat that remains is improperly managed, becoming degraded as the natural fire regimeFire regime
A fire regime is the pattern, frequency and intensity of the bushfires and wildfires that prevails in an area. It is an integral part of fire ecology, and renewal for certain types of ecosystems. If fires are too frequent, plants may be killed before they have matured, or before they have set...
is prevented. As fire suppression practices have been implemented, the pocosins, sandhills, and swamps have overgrown with brush and woody vegetation. Shrubs are not kept back and they grow to large sizes and shade out the smaller plants in the herb layer. Even where fire is prescribed or allowed to take place, pocosins do not burn thoroughly enough to remove the heavy organic layers that accumulate there. Activities involved with fire may also be detrimental, as firebreak
Firebreak
A firebreak is a gap in vegetation or other combustible material that acts as a barrier to slow or stop the progress of a bushfire or wildfire. A firebreak may occur naturally where there is a lack of vegetation or "fuel", such as a river, lake or canyon...
s are often plowed in the very ecotone openings where the plant most often grows. Agriculture
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...
, including pine plantations, and other types of operations alter the hydrology
Hydrology
Hydrology is the study of the movement, distribution, and quality of water on Earth and other planets, including the hydrologic cycle, water resources and environmental watershed sustainability...
of the wetlands, making conditions unsuitable for this and other native plants. Many of the populations are located on military bases and are vulnerable to destruction during military operations.