Pityopsis latifolia, click and scroll to see more photos Pityopsis latifolia - The Golden-Aster of the Day, flowering photos taken MARCH 8, 2012 - at Juno Hills in Palm Beach County and Walton Road Scrub in St. Lucie County. Photo of plants with old inflorescences taken March 12, 2012 at Bluefield Ranch Preserve, western St. Lucie County. Black and white photo is of the type specimen for this entity at the Gray Herbarium, from Jensen (presumably, Jensen Beach or vicinity). Have any of you seen this? I would be extremely interested in other observations, or of information about the forms of Pityopsis you see on coastal sand ridges in southern Florida. Pityopsis “latifolia” – An endemic species of coastal sand ridges in south Florida We have been puzzled by the presence of an extremely distinct Pityopsis, obviously part of the Pityopsis graminifolia complex, on the Atlantic Coastal Ridge (ACR) and nearby sand ridges from Palm Beach County north to St. Lucie County, and perhaps with historical collections from Broward County. It is also present on the sand ridges near Fort Drum in Okeechobee County. This entity is characterized by a well-developed rosette of spreading to somewhat ascending basal leaves, with each leaf over 2 cm wide, sometimes much wider. The inflorescence stalks are relatively short and stout, usually less than 40 cm tall, and with stem leaves which are shorter than the basal leaves, but still relatively wide for a member of the Pityopsis graminfolia complex. The presence of many collections which were in flower in late winter and spring is also extremely unusual for the Pityopsis graminifolia complex, and may not occur in other members of this group. It turns out that there is a name for this entity, Pityopsis graminifolia var. latifolia. Fernald (1897) described this plant as Chrysopsis graminifolia var. latifolia, and considered it quite distinct in habit from typical C. graminifolia, with much wider leaves (2-3 cm wide) and with the inflorescence being less diffuse and with fewer heads. Fernald (1897) listed only two specimens in his description, Curtiss 5819 and Palmer 259. The name was lectotypified by Semple and Bowers (1985) by Curtiss 5819, collected at Jensen (in Martin County, Florida) on 25 March 1897. The lectotype specimen is at GH, but there is a duplicate of this collection number at NY, and therefore should be considered as an isolectotype. Examination of a digital image of the NY specimen, and photograph of the GH specimen in Bowers (1972) indicates an exact match for our mysterious Atlantic Coastal Ridge material. There are only a few digital specimen images at USF (out of over a hundred Pityopsis graminifolia specimen images) that are of this entity. They include Lakela 28333, collected 21 March 1965 near Deerfield Beach in Broward County, Orzell and Bridges 21259, collected 8 March 1993 in Martin County, and possibly Perkins s.n., collected 23 January 1943 in Sarasota County. All of these collections are from coastal sand ridges, and have the wide basal leaves and short, stout culms of the type specimen. There are certainly other specimens of this entity at other herbaria, but we have not yet conducted a search for them. Fernald (1942), in a discussion of the variation within and application of names to the Chrysopsis graminifolia complex in Virginia and the Carolinas, prefaced his discussion by a list of existing taxa in the complex that he considered as distinct species. These included Chrysopsis latifolia (Fernald) Small, the combination at the species level having been made by Small (1903). Fernald (1942) goes on to discuss the correct names for the members of this complex in his region of concern, without further discussion of C. latifolia, since he clearly indicates that it does not occur that far north. However, Semple and Bowers (1985) applied the name Pityopsis graminifolia var. latifolia to a large number of P. graminifolia specimens with large involucres from Delaware, south to Florida and west to Arkansas and eastern Texas, and with disjunct populations from Mexico to Honduras and in the Bahamas. Since latifolia was the first basionym used at the variety level for their broadly-defined variety, it took precedence over well-established epithets at the species level for this group, such as nervosa and correllii. These specimens typically have long basal leaves which narrow towards the base more than do the leaves of var. latifolia from the Florida ACR. The stem leaves of these specimens are the small, reduced leaves typical of other varieties (var. tenuifolia, var. graminifolia, var. tracyi), not the well-developed spreading stem leaves of var. latifolia and var. aequilifolia. These specimens with broad basal leaves but otherwise lacking the distinctive characters of var. latifolia are probably not the same entity, and are most likely gradations in leaf size of other varieties of this species. The confusion of the application of the name Pityopsis graminifolia var. latifolia may be part of the reason why there has been resistance to recognition of the varieties of Pityopsis graminifolia as distinct taxa. Because some wide leaved Pityopsis graminifolia specimens of other regions have been assigned to the same name as the var. latifolia of the ACR, I believe this has caused this group to be polyphyletic. If the name var. latifolia is restricted to the P. graminifolia specimens of the Florida ACR and perhaps other coastal sand ridges of southern Florida, then it may very well be a distinct, monophyletic species. We have carefully examined the reasoning given in Semple and Bowers (1985) for broadening the concept of var. latifolia beyond the characters of the type collection. They state that the type of the variety has the widest leaves encountered, and the lectotype at GH is as distinctive as the NY possible isolectotype. Small (1933) implies that the the characters Fernald used to distinguish var. latifolia are characters we would currently apply to var. aequilifolia. Fernald (1897) does discuss an unusual specimen (Nash 2313) which he considered as intermediate between var. latifolia and typical C. graminifolia. By his description of this specimen, we believe this specimen to be an early collection of var. aequilifolia. It seems that the multitude of forms in the graminfolia complex caused small to over-lump these taxa in his 1933 flora, in contrast to the 1903 edition. We still need to carefully examine the specimens referred to var. latifolia from other regions, and determine if these should be accomodated within the circumscriptions of Pityopsis nervosa, Chyrsopsis correllii (if so, the combination in Pityopsis needs to be made), Heyfeldera sericea (or other possible names for the Mexico and Central American material), or perhaps include other unrecognized varieties of P. graminifolia.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 21:45:21 +0000
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