Chionanthus pygmaeus
Encyclopedia
Chionanthus pygmaeus is a rare species of flowering plant in the olive family
known by the common name pygmy fringetree. It is endemic to Florida
, where there are 46 known occurrences as of 2010. The plant is found in increasingly rare habitat in Central Florida
that is being consumed for development, and some protected areas are not managed adequately. Most populations are small. It is a federally listed endangered species
of the United States.
remaining under a meter tall, but at times may grow into a tree
4 to 5 meters in height. The branches may grow directly from the sand if the trunk becomes totally buried in a dune. The dark yellowish-green, leathery leaves are roughly oval in shape and may be 3 to 10 centimeters long. The petioles
may be maroon
in color. The inflorescence
is a panicle
of three to six flowers borne in the leaf axils. The fragrant flower has four elongated, narrow lobes in its bell-shaped corolla and measures up to 1.5 centimeters long. The drooping panicle with many narrow corolla lobes may appear fringelike
, hence the plant's common name. The fruit is a drupe
up to 2.5 centimeters long which ripens purple or brownish in color. The plant reproduces sexually
via seed and vegetatively
by growing new shoots. It resprouts after its aboveground parts are burned away in fire. It is a dioecious
species. It is probably quite long-lived.
, sandhill
s, hammocks
, flatwoods
, and transition zones between these habitats. Many of these ecosystem
s are endangered and degraded, with remaining fragments
under pressure from destructive forces. It is a plant of the well-drained yellow and white sands that remain from the ancient dune
s that once covered this section of Central Florida. Many populations are known to have been extirpated
because they occurred on valuable private land and were destroyed when the properties were developed. Most of its 46 occurrences are located on protected property, such as Lake Wales Ridge National Wildlife Refuge
. Not all of this protected land is managed
properly, however. Most of the habitat where the plant grows, such as scrub and sandhills, are dependent on periodic wildfire
s for their health and maintenance. When a fire occurs now it is generally quickly extinguished, preventing the natural fire regime
. Many areas, even in protected, conserved sites, are overgrown today because they have not burned in many years. This and many other plants in these ecosystems cannot grow when they are shaded by tall woody vegetation.
This plant may be a dominant species
in some very localized areas, and may be codominant with other shrubs and trees, forming thickets. It has been noted to grow alongside yellow plum
(Ximenia americana), silk bay (Persea humilis), scrub hickory (Carya floridana), sand pine (Pinus clausa), sandhill rosemary
(Ceratiola ericoides), and several oak
s. It grows with its relative, white fringetree
(Chionanthus virginicus), and sometimes hybridizes with it.
More research is needed for this species, because many aspects of its life history
, reproduction
, pollination
, population biology
, fire ecology
, genetics
, and other factors in its biology are unknown.
will not downlist the species to threatened status until there is reliable scientific evidence describing the population size and characteristics necessary for the continued survival of the species. Also, its habitat must be safe from damage and degradation, including improper fire management and outright destruction in the conversion of the land to housing or agriculture use.
Oleaceae
Oleaceae are a family containing 24 extant genera and around 600 species of mesophytic shrubs, trees and occasionally vines. As shrubs, members of this family may be twine climbers, or scramblers.-Leaves:...
known by the common name pygmy fringetree. It is endemic to Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, where there are 46 known occurrences as of 2010. The plant is found in increasingly rare habitat in Central Florida
Central Florida
Central Florida is a regional designation for the area surrounding Orlando in east central Florida, United States. The area represents the third largest population concentration in Florida, after the South Florida and Tampa Bay regions, respectively....
that is being consumed for development, and some protected areas are not managed adequately. Most populations are small. 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.
Characteristics
This plant is quite variable in appearance, depending on the type of habitat in which it grows. It is usually a shrubShrub
A shrub or bush is distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and shorter height, usually under 5–6 m tall. A large number of plants may become either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...
remaining under a meter tall, but at times may grow into a tree
Tree
A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...
4 to 5 meters in height. The branches may grow directly from the sand if the trunk becomes totally buried in a dune. The dark yellowish-green, leathery leaves are roughly oval in shape and may be 3 to 10 centimeters long. The petioles
Petiole (botany)
In botany, the petiole is the stalk attaching the leaf blade to the stem. The petiole usually has the same internal structure as the stem. Outgrowths appearing on each side of the petiole are called stipules. Leaves lacking a petiole are called sessile, or clasping when they partly surround the...
may be maroon
Maroon (color)
Maroon is a dark red color.-Etymology:Maroon is derived from French marron .The first recorded use of maroon as a color name in English was in 1789.-Maroon :...
in color. 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 a panicle
Panicle
A panicle is a compound raceme, a loose, much-branched indeterminate inflorescence with pedicellate flowers attached along the secondary branches; in other words, a branched cluster of flowers in which the branches are racemes....
of three to six flowers borne in the leaf axils. The fragrant flower has four elongated, narrow lobes in its bell-shaped corolla and measures up to 1.5 centimeters long. The drooping panicle with many narrow corolla lobes may appear fringelike
Fringe (trim)
Fringe is an ornamental textile trim applied to an edge of an item, such as drapery, a flag, epaulettes, or decorative tassel.Fringe originates in the ends of the warp, projecting beyond the woven fabric...
, hence the plant's common name. The fruit is a drupe
Drupe
In botany, a drupe is a fruit in which an outer fleshy part surrounds a shell of hardened endocarp with a seed inside. These fruits develop from a single carpel, and mostly from flowers with superior ovaries...
up to 2.5 centimeters long which ripens purple or brownish in color. The plant reproduces sexually
Sexual reproduction
Sexual reproduction is the creation of a new organism by combining the genetic material of two organisms. There are two main processes during sexual reproduction; they are: meiosis, involving the halving of the number of chromosomes; and fertilization, involving the fusion of two gametes and the...
via seed and 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 growing new shoots. It resprouts after its aboveground parts are burned away in fire. It is a dioecious
Plant sexuality
Plant sexuality covers the wide variety of sexual reproduction systems found across the plant kingdom. This article describes morphological aspects of sexual reproduction of plants....
species. It is probably quite long-lived.
Habitat
The plant grows in Florida scrubFlorida scrub
Florida scrub is an endangered temperate coniferous forest ecoregion of the state of Florida in the United States. It is found on coastal and inland sand ridges and is characterized by a xeromorphic plant community dominated by shrubs and dwarf oaks. Scrub soils, a type of entisol, are derived...
, 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, hammocks
Hammock (ecology)
Hammocks are dense stands of hardwood trees that grow on natural rises of only a few inches higher than surrounding marshland that is otherwise too wet to support them. Hammocks are distinctive in that they are formed gradually over thousands of years rising in a wet area through the deposits of...
, flatwoods
Flatwoods
Flatwoods, Pineywoods, Longleaf Pine-Wiregrass Ecosystem refers to an ecological community in the Southeastern coastal plain of North America...
, and transition zones between these habitats. Many of these 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....
s are endangered and degraded, with remaining fragments
Habitat fragmentation
Habitat fragmentation as the name implies, describes the emergence of discontinuities in an organism's preferred environment , causing population fragmentation...
under pressure from destructive forces. It is a plant of the well-drained yellow and white sands that remain from the ancient dune
Dune
In physical geography, a dune is a hill of sand built by wind. Dunes occur in different forms and sizes, formed by interaction with the wind. Most kinds of dunes are longer on the windward side where the sand is pushed up the dune and have a shorter "slip face" in the lee of the wind...
s that once covered this section of Central Florida. Many populations are known to have been extirpated
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...
because they occurred on valuable private land and were destroyed when the properties were developed. Most of its 46 occurrences are located on protected property, such as Lake Wales Ridge National Wildlife Refuge
Lake Wales Ridge National Wildlife Refuge
The Lake Wales Ridge National Wildlife Refuge is part of the United States National Wildlife Refuge System, located in four separated areas on the Lake Wales Ridge east of US 27 between Davenport and Sebring Florida. The 1,194 acre refuge was established in 1990, to protect a host of plants and...
. Not all of this protected land is managed
Habitat conservation
Habitat conservation is a land management practice that seeks to conserve, protect and restore, habitat areas for wild plants and animals, especially conservation reliant species, and prevent their extinction, fragmentation or reduction in range...
properly, however. Most of the habitat where the plant grows, such as scrub and sandhills, are dependent on 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 for their health and maintenance. When a fire occurs now it is generally quickly extinguished, preventing the natural fire regime
Fire 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...
. Many areas, even in protected, conserved sites, are overgrown today because they have not burned in many years. This and many other plants in these ecosystems cannot grow when they are shaded by tall woody vegetation.
This plant may be a dominant species
Dominance (ecology)
Ecological dominance is the degree to which a species is more numerous than its competitors in an ecological community, or makes up more of the biomass...
in some very localized areas, and may be codominant with other shrubs and trees, forming thickets. It has been noted to grow alongside yellow plum
Ximenia americana
Ximenia americana, commonly known as Yellow Plum or Sea Lemon, is a small sprawling tree of woodlands native to Australia and Asia....
(Ximenia americana), silk bay (Persea humilis), scrub hickory (Carya floridana), sand pine (Pinus clausa), sandhill rosemary
Ceratiola ericoides
The Sandhill-rosemary, Florida-rosemary or Sand heath, Ceratiola ericoides, is a shrub usually included in the plant family Ericaceae, though treated by some botanists in the Empetraceae....
(Ceratiola ericoides), and several 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...
s. It grows with its relative, white fringetree
Chionanthus virginicus
Chionanthus virginicus is a tree native to the eastern United States, from New Jersey south to Florida, and west to Oklahoma and Texas. -Growth:...
(Chionanthus virginicus), and sometimes hybridizes with it.
More research is needed for this species, because many aspects of its life history
Biological life cycle
A life cycle is a period involving all different generations of a species succeeding each other through means of reproduction, whether through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction...
, reproduction
Plant reproduction
Plant reproduction is the production of new individuals or offspring in plants, which can be accomplished by sexual or asexual means. Sexual reproduction produces offspring by the fusion of gametes, resulting in offspring genetically different from the parent or parents...
, pollination
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...
, population biology
Population biology
Population biology is a study of populations of organisms, especially the regulation of population size, life history traits such as clutch size, and extinction...
, fire ecology
Fire ecology
Fire ecology is concerned with the processes linking the natural incidence of fire in an ecosystem and the ecological effects of this fire. Many ecosystems, such as the North American prairie and chaparral ecosystems, and the South African savanna, have evolved with fire as a natural and necessary...
, genetics
Genetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
, and other factors in its biology are unknown.
Endangered status
There are many populations of this plant, and it is locally common to abundant in a few areas. In general, however, the populations are small, in some cases made up of a single plant. The United States Fish and Wildlife ServiceUnited States Fish and Wildlife Service
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is a federal government agency within the United States Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats...
will not downlist the species to threatened status until there is reliable scientific evidence describing the population size and characteristics necessary for the continued survival of the species. Also, its habitat must be safe from damage and degradation, including improper fire management and outright destruction in the conversion of the land to housing or agriculture use.