Queen palm

Queen palm (Syagrus romanzoffiana)  Family: Arecaceae

 This has become a popular ornamental all around the world in tropical and subtropical areas. One attractive feature for landscape gardeners is that this palm can obtain a height of 20 feet within 5 years if grown on good soil with ample water and fertilizer. On campus an attractive specimen can be found in the Williams Building court yard. In Hawaii the seed is known as monkey nut and is used in making jewelery and leis. It originates from the South America (Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay).

In Queensland Australia and Southern Florida it is considered to be an invader. In Florida (designated a category II) means it hasn't been shown to impact native plant communities so far but it is clearly naturalized and showing signs of being a problem. In this case it is spreading from planted areas in a few counties in the southern half of the peninsula - apparently mostly in developed areas. Its fruit are bird dispersed.

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Williams building courtyard, with Queen Palm.

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Dawn Redwood

Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides)  Family: CUPRESSACEAE

The two Dawn Redwood trees on the Florida State campus are near the Starbucks and the new health center. They are easily mis-identified as bald cypress. Dawn redwood shares the deciduous habit and buttressed roots that bald cypress but it is more closely related to the redwoods (genus Sequoia). The genus Metasequoia was first described as a fossil from the Mesozoic Era (more than 68 million years ago) by Shigeru Miki in 1941, but soon after this a living representative, this species Metasequoia glyptostroboides, was found and described from a few small forests in China just after the second world war. Since then the plant has been planted worldwide and is not an uncommon ornamental tree. A large forest has been established and seedling grow wild in North Carolina but the tree has not established a wild population in Florida yet.

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Dawn Redwood leaves.

Dawn Redwood foliage

Dawn Redwood trees near the new health and wellness center on FSU campus.

Bark and fruit of Dawn Redwood

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Bald cypress

Taxodium distichum is bald cypress, and is in the cypress family (Cupressaceae)

This is planted around the FSU campus in a few places, especially in low lying areas near drains and ditches. A few nice examples occur just to the west of the tennis courts. It is normally associated with swamps in SE coastal plain region of North America - Delaware to Texas. It occurs statewide in Florida but not in the southern most counties. Good examples occur at Wakulla Springs.

Deciduous bald cypress growing in Wakulla Springs

The buttressed roots of bald cypress.

Fruit of bald cypress

Description: Grows tall and straight to about 40 m in height with some trees having large buttresses. Deciduous. Leaves: Green 8-20 mm long - feather like in appearance. Fruit: globose cones.

Similar to: Pond cypress (Taxodium ascendens) is similar but the pond cypress in form but the leaves are short 3-6 mm (needle like in appearance) and appressed to the supporting branchlets.

Pond cypress leaves and fruit.

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Map of bald cypress on the FSU campus - click for more information.

Introduced palms on campus

The Palm family has the taxonomic name Arecaceae but was previously given the more intuitive Palmae unfortunately through the vagaries of botanical nomenclature this Latin name is considered old fashioned now.

The most common palm on campus is the native species and state tree Sabal palmetto which outnumbers all the other palms on campus 2 to 1. The non-native species we have are the Pindo Palm (Butia capitata), the Date Palm (Phoenix dactylifera), the Canary Island Date Palm (Phoenix canariensis), and the Mexican Fan Palm (Washingtonia robusta).

Mexican Fan Palms are typical of Venice Beach in LA - just think Hollywood. Date palms are typical of oases in the middle east, and Canary Island Date Palms are just a fairly common ornamental. Scroll to the bottom to see the map of these palms on campus.

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Pindo Palm (Butia capitata)

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Mexican Fan Palm (Washingtonia robusta)

Some famous Mexican Fan Palms in LA's Venice Beach.

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Canary Island Date Palm (Phoenix canariensis)

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Date Palm (Phoenix dactylifera)

Non-native Palms on the Florida State University Campus

American Sweetgum

Family: Altingiaceae

Liquidambar styraciflua Sweetgum, Alligator wood

This trees is native to warm temperate areas of eastern North America and tropical montane regions of Mexico and Central America. Despite the similarity of its leaves to maple or oak it is in a completely different family. It always seems like this would have been a better common name for maple. The distinctive spiny fruit are shared across the genus, and Asian species in the same genus are used medicinally. The wood has been put to various uses, including imitation mahogany. It is a common ornamental, probably because of its fall colors. Those colors are much more vibrant the farther north you go.

In Florida sweetgum is found from Tampa northward and occurs in both lowland and upland woods.

Form: A large tree up to 40 m in height. Leaves: Alternate, simple 10-18 cm (sometimes more than 20 cm), star shaped with long petioles, serrated margins. The alternate leaves makes it easy to distinguish from maples. Flowers: March-May,when leaves are half grown greenish. Male and female flowers are born on the same tree. Male flowers are in terminal racemes two to three inches long, covered with rusty hairs; the female flowers are born on a slender peduncle borne in the axil some leaves. Fruit:Hard spiny balls 2.5-4cm in diameter hanging on long stalks are made up of fused ovaries, making it a compound fruit with 40-60 seed capsules. These fruit are persistent and quite distinctive for the species. Bark: Grayish, fissured and interlacing. The plated bark on small twigs gives it another common name: Alligator wood.





Leaves and fruit of sweetgum. Sweetgum bark. Sweetgum's super distinctive fruit.

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Sweetgum Map Florida State University Campus see in separate window

Pecan and Water Hickory

Walnut Family (Junglandaceae).
The Pecan Carya illinoinensis
Pecan is a native to North America but introduced (and now wild) in North Florida. It is a medium to large sized deciduous tree 100-140 feet tall. The leaves are alternate, pinnately compound, ten to twenty inches long, each with 9-17 leaflets that are 4-8 inches long. The flowers are unisexual, both sexes are borne in separate clusters on the same tree. The fruit are thin-shelled nuts; four winged from base to apex, borne in clusters of three to twelve. A ridge is formed where the two halves of the outer fruit come together. The fruit is dark brown in color and covered with yellow scales. The husk is thin and brittle. The husk often persists on the branch into the winter after dropping the nut. The nut is thin shelled with a reddish-brown color and pointed at both ends. The bark is grayish brown or light brown and is flat ridged and shallowly furrowed. This tree's distribution follows the river basins very closely, principally along the Mississippi and its tributaries, the Colorado River in Texas, and along some of its tributaries in Mexico. It appears that several hybrids are grown on campus. This tree is similar to other Hickories: It is distinguished from water Hickory Carya aquatica by having glabrous (i.e. hairless) leaf parts, and from black walnut (Juglans nigra) by its grayish bark (black walnut has dark furrowed bark).

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Pecan leaves

Pecan bark

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Walnut Family (Junglandaceae).
Water Hickory Carya aquatica
This 60-70 foot deciduous Florida native grows best in wet well-drained soils along stream banks and flood plains throughout the southeastern United States. It grows from eastern Carolinas, south to central Florida, and west to Eastern Texas. The alternately arranged pinnately compound leaves are 9 and 15 inches long. Each compound leaf has 7-17 lance-shaped leaflets with finely serrate margins that are 3 to 10 inches long. The topside of the leaflet is dark green and glossy, while the underside is a paler green with sparse pubescence (or hairs) present along the veins. Water hickory bark is gray or light brown with narrow cracks that give rise to reddish scales. When mature, the bark looks shaggy with flakey plates. Small greenish flowers bloom in the spring. Male and female flowers bloom on the same branch between April and May, with male flowers occurring in three-stemmed clusters called "catkins," while 2 to 10 female flowers appear on short stalks. The bitter nuts or pecans are enclosed in a dark brown, 1- to 1 ½-inch-long, thin-shelled husk, which splits along four winged seams to release the nut.

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Water hickory leaves and fruit
Water hickory bark

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Pecan and Hickory Map Florida State University Campus see in separate window

Don't be yellow about your pine ID.

FAMILY: PINACEAE

Here is a quick guide to distinguishing the three most similar and common pines around Tallahassee. These are known as the Yellow Pines for their wood color and they are slash, loblolly and longleaf pines (Pinus elliotti, P. taeda and P. palustris respectively). Hopefully this blog will help you and there will be no need to whine about pine ID after reading this. Keep an eye out for more pine descriptions on this blog but this one should really cover most of your needs around Tallahassee.

Slash and longleaf pines are associated with the widespread flatwoods ecosystem in Florida which could also be called and pine savanna - it is often prone to fire which allows the ecosystem type to persist. Loblolly is more common on the uplands in north Florida.

Slash pine has a distinctive reddish plates on its bark and 2-3 needles per fascicle - the other two have flakier bark and 3 needles per fascicle. Sessile cones on loblolly (6-10 cm) often persist on the tree year round, usually in pairs or threes, it has flaky but often furrowed bark. Longleaf pine have stalked cones longer than 15 cm and its 3 needles per fasicle are 15-30 cm long, with a distinctive silvery terminal bud.

Now let's let the pictures do all the talking.

Distinguishing yellow pines, slash, longleaf and loblolly -cones and needle drawings.

Distinguishing yellow pines, slash, longleaf and loblolly - photos.

Pinus palustris longleaf pine bark

Pinus taeda loblolly pine bark

Pinus elliottii slash pine bark (the easy one).

Pines on FSU grounds in Tallahassee (click on point for more information - link for more).