Family: Celastraceae
Group: Dicot
Substrate:
Terrestrial
Habit:
Tree
Perennation:
Perennial
Native Range: South Florida and the West Indies.
NatureServe Global Status:
Apparently Secure
State of Florida Status:
Endangered
Florida Natural Areas Inventory State Status:
Imperiled
IRC SOUTH FLORIDA Status:
Imperiled
Map of select IRC data for peninsular Florida
SOUTH FLORIDA Occurrence:
Present
SOUTH FLORIDA Native Status:
Native
South Florida History and Distribution: In South Florida, now restricted to the Florida Keys. Formerly known from between Miami and Coconut Grove (Brickell Hammock), where collected in 1913 by John Kunkel Small (4686 NY), and from a single collection from “rubbish heap and pine woods south of Montgomery Foundation” (
Gillis s.n. FTG), the latter which was the basis for Pricilla Fawcett’s drawing in the Flora of the Bahama Archipelago (Correll & Correll 1982: 868).
SOUTH FLORIDA Cultivated Status:
Cultivated
Comments: For more images, click on the Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants link below. For a digitized image of Elbert Little's Florida range map, visit the
Exploring Florida website. See also Florida Natural Areas Inventory's
Field Guide to the Rare Plants of Florida page (Chafin 2000).
FLORIDA KEYS Occurrence:
Present
FLORIDA KEYS Native Status:
Native
IRC FLORIDA KEYS Status:
Imperiled
Map of select IRC data for the Florida Keys
Florida Keys History and Distribution: First collected between 1838 and 1853 by John Loomis Blodgett on the island of Key West. Reported in
1913 by John Kunkel Small for coastal sand dunes and hammocks in the lower Keys. It was subsequently recorded numerous times in the middle Keys from lower Matecumbe Key south, and was collected once in the upper Keys in 1969 by Joan Browder on North Key Largo (
s.n. BUS, now at FTG), in or near what is now Dagny Johnson Key Largo Hammock Botanical State Park. It was also reported for Snake Creek Hammocks by National Audubon Society et al. (1992), but was not observed there by IRC in 2000. It was first observed in the lower sandy Keys in 1996, when vouchered by George D. Gann and Keith A. Bradley (467 FTG). We consider this native from the upper Keys to the lower sandy Keys, and extant from the middle Keys to the lower sandy Keys.
