A recent visit to Myakka State Forest in mid-February revealed a veritable explosion of wildflowers.
This is mostly a hydric and mesic pine flatwoods with wet savannahs burned on a three-year cycle. It was formerly a cattle ranch with improved and unimproved pastures and many small freshwater wetlands next to the tidal Myakka River.
The history of the site plus management created a sparse pine canopy with mixed palmetto and grassy, herbaceous ground cover, which provides considerable habitat for wildflowers often released by the frequent fires.
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St. John’s wort with long yellow stamens belongs in its own unique family.
One site was carpeted with an unusual pink spiderwort soon after fires. Nearby were procession flowers with similar pinkish or lavender color, a milkwort and rose rush, which has a complex reproductive structure.
Perhaps these flowers gain an advantage in attracting pollinators by the similar coloration?
Other common flowers at this site are bluish, white or yellow. Common milkworts may be yellow and orange - not pinkish like the procession flower.
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William Dunson, Ph.d., professor emeritus of biology at Penn State University, splits time between Southwest Florida and his farm in Galax, Va. He can be reached at wdunson@comcast.net.
The most common bluish flowers in damp, disturbed areas were toadflax, which are beautiful in mass. They serve as a host plant for buckeye butterfly caterpillars.
A rare blue flower, the skullcap of the mint family, turned up as did the widespread blue pennyroyal so attractive to insects and humans.
It is striking so many flowers are yellow, even though they may not be closely related.
Common yellow flowers included St. John's wort (with long yellow stamens in its own unique family), goldenaster and sneezeweed in the aster family, bachelor's button in the milkwort family and the rock rose in its own family.
These diverse flowers benefit from attracting pollinators that associate yellow with nectar. The success of the widespread asters, which are often yellow, may lead to mimicry by other flowers.
White flowers included sabatia, nightshades, black root, paw paw and tread softly, a spurge.
The flower colors we see are not necessarily what insects see since they may perceive ultraviolet and polarized light. So flower colors and forms that so entrance humans are not designed for our eyes, but for potential pollinators such as insects and birds.
It is indeed a challenging and exciting task to observe favorite flowers to determine what actually visits them to obtain nectar and/or pollen and how effectively pollination is under different circumstances.
Flowers can be enjoyed on levels ranging from aesthetic to a mechanistic evolutionary perspective. The more we know, the more fascinating becomes the ecology of these remarkable reproductive structures called flowers.
William Dunson, Ph.d., professor emeritus of biology at Penn State University, splits time between Southwest Florida and his farm in Galax, Va. He can be reached at wdunson@comcast.net.
