Coontie, a Graceful Addition to the Garden

Coontie is one of my favorite plants. It is an evergreen cycad, growing to about 3 feet tall and is native to the Florida peninsula. Its natural habitat is dominated by pines growing on well drained sandy to sandy-loam soil. Coontie is a great choice as a foundation plant because it never needs pruning. It grows as broad as it is tall and can tolerate full sun or deep shade, but I think it is happiest in filtered shade.

When we first moved to our home, the lovely brick foundation was completely covered by boxwoods and azaleas that needed a lot of pruning. We removed them all. We planted two coonties flanking the front steps leading to the porch and front door. I had heard they were slow growing, so I fertilized them with organic fertilizer.

They surprised me by growing fairly quickly and I do not attribute the growth rate completely to the fertilizer. Rather, the soil conditions created by the limey cement walkway and brick and mortar foundation and steps seem perfect for coontie. Ferns also like it in this soil; we have a nice stand of maidenhair fern and leatherwood fern growing along this north facing brick foundation.

We also planted two coontie under our huge live oak tree to give an evergreen presence among the woodland wildflowers that come and go throughout the year. They are so graceful looking and did I mention they don’t need pruning?

Every year the female plants produce brown cones that are composed of fleshy bright orange seeds when the cone ripens. Some animal must be eating them, perhaps an opossum, because these coonties are spreading up hill; we find new seedlings regularly.

Coontie, once established, is drought tolerant. It is rated moderately salt tolerant – tolerant of salt winds but not of salt water. It is cold hardy to 15 degrees F. In south Florida, it is the sole larval food plant of the atala butterfly which brings us to a bit of history about coontie.

All parts of coontie are poisonous; however Florida’s early inhabitants, both the Timucuan and Calusa peoples figured out how to remove the toxin cycasin from the large starchy tuber that grows underground. The Seminoles learned the technique of maceration and washing from the earlier people and made it into bread. The common name coontie is derived from the Seminole phrase “conti hateka” which means white root or white bread.

By the 1880s, settlers created mills in Miami to process this starch and by 1911 it became known as Florida arrowroot. During WWI one mill processed up to 18 tons daily for military purchase. Needless to say, coontie was over exploited and to this day little remains in its native habitat. (Probably little of its habitat remains either.).This did not bode well for the atala butterfly, whose tiny caterpillars have to have coontie to feed upon. They are able to break down the cycasin, just as monarchs have evolved to break down the toxins in milkweeds.

The good news is that coontie has more recently become a popular landscape plant in south Florida, both in commercial and residential settings. The atala butterfly population is recovering and will continue to do so as long as folks remember that atala caterpillars will denude their plants from time to time. “Give me holes in my plants, but leave me the butterflies, please!” to paraphrase Joni Mitchell. Coontie remains on Florida’s Commercially Exploited Plant List and the collection of coontie from the wild is prohibited.

We won’t attract atalas here in North Florida, but coontie has so many other attributes to make it a great choice for Tallahassee landscapes. Plant one today!

Native Blue Porterweed

Incredible and incredibly edible, the native wildflower Blue Porterweed (Stachytarpheta jamaicensis) is a feast for the eyes and the stomachs of humans and pollinators alike! Stachys comes from the Greek word for an “ear of grain” and tarphys comes from the Greek word for thick, referring to this plant’s reed-like flower spikes. Jamaicensis refers to one origin country in this plant’s native region. Can you guess which one? Jamaica. Native to South and Central Florida as well as the Caribbean and Tropical America, this wildflower grows as an annual or tender perennial in North Florida and dies completely during our cold winters unless protected. One thing is certain – this low, sprawling wildflower makes the most of its time when planted this far north.

Long, narrow spikes bear delicate pastel-blue to lavender flowers with white centers that open for just one day before falling away.. or into a harvest basket. These edible blooms, eaten raw, taste exactly like mushrooms and the flower spikes, used like a bay leaf, add seasoning to soups and stews. A natural foam occurs from the dried leaves if steeped into a tea or brewed into a beer, hence the name “porter”-weed. This fizzy mixture benefits humans both recreationally and medicinally, with many claiming the beverage aids in the treatment of fever and other maladies. Researchers study S. jamaicensis extensively for its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and antibacterial properties. A leaf extract contained high levels of phytochemicals with proven anti-microbial power.

Pollinators use the leaves in addition to humans! The toothed, ovate leaves of blue porterweed provide a meal to Tropical Buckeye butterflies (who live further south than Tallahassee). These butterflies feed on the porterweed as it is one of the buckeye’s few larval hosts. Blue porterweed’s prolific blooms emerge from spring to fall and these nectar-filled, tubular flowers attract hummingbirds, butterflies, moths, and bees. Cloudless sulphurs tend to rest along the flower while moths flit back and forth along the spikes at dusk.

These blooms refuse to open on cloudy days or if placed in too much shade so plant in full to part sun. Blue Porterweed grows low at just eight to twelve inches tall with a three foot spread so give this sprawling plant plenty of space to grow! Plant near shelters to protect the plant when it freezes or treat as an annual and allow it to die during the winter. The leaves turn from their dark green to a purple color and exhibit some foliar damage in temperatures colder than fifty degrees. However sensitive to cold, its natural habitat on coastal dunes, shell mounds and disturbed areas means the Blue Porterweed tolerates salt and drought. 

Non-native, invasive varieties such as Stachytarpheta urticifolia or Stachytarpheta cayennensis look extremely similar to the native S. jamaicensis. The S. urticifolia and S. cayennensis’s erect growth habit distinguishes them from the native’s prostrate habit. I would advise you to take care identifying or avoid buying porterweed when shopping at non-native nurseries as these two species escape cultivation and infringe on native habitats. If you love the native blue porterweed and want more of it, this plant propagates best from cuttings and ensures the origin of the specimen.

Native blue porterweed has a rich history and is a robust southern staple in the garden. This flower pulls its weight in the landscape, spreading out and blooming non-stop most of the year. If you're interested in establishing a butterfly or edible garden, this plant has a foot in both categories and I’d recommend rushing out to get one as soon as possible!

Moss Maddness

On the clay slopes of ravines, clinging to the rocks in shallow streams, and deep in the cypress domes lie our native mosses. Minute green remnants from the first organisms to ever colonize land, the world of mosses is entangled with our everyday life but seems to remain on our peripherals. Inhabiting the margins between our world and the microscopic – the biology of all mosses is distinctly separate from that of 80 percent of the plants on earth – that of the vascular plants.

Common haircap moss (Polytrichum commune) is a highly adaptable moss, thriving in many soil types and from full shade to sun. Known for being a filter for heavy metals and superb for erosion control, here P. commune is holding together the vertical clay slopes by a stream in town. Photo by Louie Sandstrum.

True mosses are Bryophytes, a classification of plants that are defined by being nonvascular, organisms that have no vessels of their own to transport water or nutrients. Think of a tree stump. There’s a layer of woody bark, vessels in rings of tissue that make up the bulk of the tree, and the heartwood at the center. Mosses have no such features. This leads to two things – the lack of complex supporting structures means mosses are restricted to the boundary layer of the earth where the climate is most stable, but they are also free to have as much surface area as they can manage – with leaves often only one cell thick.

This combination makes moss as accessible to water as possible. Whether it is the humidity in the air, rainfall, or flowing from a nearby source, mosses need water to live. The physical movement of water over moss takes the role of vascular action, providing particles of nutrients and hydration directly to their cells. Even when completely dried out, most mosses will reabsorb water and seemingly come back to life, flushing back out into their original colors.

Bryophytes reproduce by spores rather than seeds, as no true moss flowers or fruits, but produce what is called a sporophyte – a spore-filled capsule on the end of a stalk. Water once again comes into play, acting as the main transportation for moss spores, though taller sporophytes can make use of the air. Mosses can also easily spread through any part of the plant – a leaf, stem section, or rhizoid (the moss version of roots) – massing a colony over time.

This flat glaze moss (Entodon cladorrhizans) lives in the cracks between a flagstone pathway under full sun and well-draining sand and yet can thrive in shaded water edges as well. Photo by Louie Sandstrum.

In a garden moss can shine. Thriving in areas that may seem harder to landscape, permanently wet and shaded areas that would otherwise be patches of mud can be redefined by some thoughtfully placed moss. Even the heavy freeze we experienced last Christmas means little to our mosses, protected by their proximity to the soil and coupled with a natural antifreeze, mosses often remain green even underneath a layer of snow. Being evergreen may tempt plant-eaters during the winter months, yet other internal processes create phenolic compounds, antiseptic toxins that act as a pesticide and deter herbivory.

All species of our native mosses are considered perennials, meaning they persist year after year, living anywhere from two to 10 years, though colonies can persist for decades. As long as you choose the right species for the spot in your yard, the main upkeep for a moss garden is weeding and brushing any fallen leaves off the carpeted surface. What matters most is the substrate a moss is established on. Some species grow only on bare rock, others in decaying matter, and some on the bark of living trees. Mosses aren’t restricted to only the wettest or shadiest of spaces either, there are species that grow in full sun and in every soil type.

The texture of saber-tooth moss (Plagiomnium ciliare) enhances that of the mosses around it. Mosses can commonly be seen cohabitating with other species – it would be easy to mistake P. ciliare for a vascular plant with its large leaves and creeping growth. Photo by Louie Sandstrum.

One of our natives, common haircap moss (Polytrichum commune), is found worldwide from the Arctic circle down through Mexico, a common trend for moss. These extensive ranges allow them to pair well with established natives in many landscapes. Partridgeberry (Mitchella repens) finds a foothold among saber-tooth moss (Plagiomnium ciliare) on a stream edge and mounding mosses like pincushion moss (Leucobryum glaucum) can add green to the area beneath a palmetto or Rhododendron. Any ponds bordered by wildflowers that die back in the cooler months can benefit by having an underlayer of moss to provide interest year-round. Wildlife makes use of moss as well; I have seen moss used by insects as places to sip water from their leaves without drowning and by several species of birds as a plush layer of nest lining.

To someone who has not been introduced to the world of mosses it can be easy to miss that which lives underfoot. Mosses can act as texture in planters, blanket rocks in a bird garden, provide greenery in water features, fill in between flagstone on pathways, as a ground cover in shady spots, or even as their own featured garden. In forests they provide similar services – reducing erosion and filtering water. It’s this versatility that makes our native mosses worth discovering in the wild and a delight in any yard.