U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE
DIVISION OF ENDANGERED SPECIES

SPECIES ACCOUNTS

FAMILY: Loganiaceae

STATUS: Endangered, Federal Register, November 26, 1990

DESCRIPTION AND REPRODUCTION: A perennial herb with a single, erect, sharply ridged stem 1O to 3O centimeters (4-12 inches) tall. The leaves are opposite and sessile, largest at the top of the stem, 3 to 5 centimeters (1 to 2 inches) long. Flowers are borne at the top of the stem in a few-flowered, spikelike raceme. The flowers, mounted on very short stalks, point upward. Sepals are 4 to 6 millimeters long. The corolla is 2.5 to 3 centimeters long, consisting of a narrow tube about 1 centimeter long, broadening to a wider tube with five lobes, each 5 to 6 millimeters long. The corolla is pale pink, slightly darker at the margins of the lobes. The stamens stay inserted within the flower (Kral 1983). The corolla lobes tend to stay nearly closed, with five slits opening between the lobes, but the flowers do open completely (George Rogers, Missouri Botanical Garden, pers. comm. 1989). The flower resembles those of gentians, which is the reason for the plant's name. Flowering is in May and June.

The closest relative of Spigelia gentianoides is pinkroot, Spigella marilandica, a widespread species that grows in clumps rather than as single stems and has brilliant red flowers (Kral 1983).

RANGE AND POPULATION LEVEL: This species was first collected by A.W. Chapman before the Civil War, from the west side of the Apalachicola River, probably in Jackson County and Mariana, Jackson County. One specimen is labelled "Quincy. 1836, not seen since.", but the date is incorrect, so the locality is unreliable. Ferdinand Rugel collected the plant near Mount Vernon (now Chattahoochee, Gadsden County) in 1843 (K. Wurdack, in litt. 1988).

The University of Florida herbarium has specimens (verified by Rogers [pers. comm. 1989]) from Chipley, Washington County (1940 and 1941), and from 8 miles north of Wewahitchka, Calhoun County (1954). Harry Ahles and David Boufford found one locality in Jackson County in 1973 (Wunderlin et al. 1980). A specimen from Gulf Hammock (Levy County), labelled by its collectors as Spigelia gentianoides, has been determined to be S. loganioides (R. Wunderlin, University of South Florida, pers. comm. 1988). Godfrey (1979) included Liberty County, Florida in the distribution of this plant.

Recently, Gary Knight, Robert Kral, Angus Gholson, Jr., Wilson Baker, and Kenneth Wurdack relocated one population and found two more (Rogers 1988a, 1988b; Gholson, pers. comm. 1989). Rogers, Robert Bowden (Director of Horticulture, Missouri Botanical Garden) and others revisited the populations in 1989. One population, in Jackson County, had about 30 plants in 1988, one fifth as many as it had 12 years earlier. The second, near the Jackson-Bay County line, has no more than 10 plants (Rogers, pers. comm. 1988). The third population is somewhat larger than the others.

HABITAT: Gentian pinkroot occurs in mixed pine-hardwood forest, but the largest known population is in a longleaf-wiregrass woods, drier than flatwoods but apparently not a longleaf-turkey oak site. At this site, logging and replanting of pines resulted in full sunlight, at least until the young pines provide shade. Pinkroot plants at the site had sturdy stems and flowered, while plants at a shaded site appeared spindly, indicating that this species may actually prefer sun (Rogers, pers. comm. 1989; Bowden, in litt. 1990). Prescribed fire in a mixed hardwood-pine forest may have benefitted the pinkroots.

REASONS FOR CURRENT STATUS: This may have been a locally common species in the early nineteenth century. It may not have been difficult to find as late as 1941 label information on herbarium specimens is skimpy. The plant seems not to have been collected between 1954 and 1973, and Robert Kral, an expert and persistent field worker, had located the plant only once. The plant is definitely extremely rare now. In the absence of information on its habitat requirements, it is premature to give an explanation for the decline of gentian pinkroot. The species may be native to the wiregrass understory of longleaf pinelands, in which case the destruction of such vegetation for cotton fields, along with twentieth century forestry practices on sites that weren't cleared may have severely affected the species.

MANAGEMENT AND PROTECTION: One small population is on State-managed land, where managers will have to adopt a cautious experimental approach to habitat management. Prescribed fire, already tried, may be beneficial. It is not known at present what might be done to protect or manage the largest known population, on private land planted to pines.

REFERENCES:

Godfrey, R.K. 1979. Pink-root, Spigellia logamioides, in Ward, D.B., ed., Rare and endangered biota of Florida. Vol. 5. Plants. Univ. Presses of Fla., Gainesville. xxix + 175 pp.

Kral, R. 1983. A report on some rare, threatened, or endangered forest-related vascular plants of the South. USDA Forest Service, Technical Publication R8-TP 2. x + 1305 pp.

Rogers, G.K. 1986. The genera of Loganiaceae in the Southeastern United States. Jour. Arnold Arboretum 67: 143-185.

Rogers, G.K. 1988a. Spigella gentianoides--a species on the brink of extinction. Plant Conservation 3(3): 1,8.

Rogers, G.K. 1988b. Gardening at the Garden: A species that nearly disappeared. Missouri Bot. Gard. Bull. 76:7.

Wunderlin, R.P., D. Richardson, and B. Hansen. 1980. Status report on Spigella gentianoides. Unpublished report submitted to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Jacksonville, Florida. 13 pp

For further information please contact:

Fish and Wildlife Service
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Jacksonville, Florida 32216

Telephone: 904/791-2580