State Records (continued)

Paronychia virginica Spreng.

Early in our explorations of the Ketona Glades we found that an unfamiliar, presumptive Paronychia was a characteristic perennial species of open, xeric habitats on the more centrally located outcrops. Determination to species had to await anthesis, and on July 19, 1992 we were rewarded with the first flowers, confirming our suspicion that the plant was Paronychia virginica Spreng. (A. and S. 6891, UNA).

The newfound Alabama populations have considerable phytogeographic significance, as they bridge an enormous gap between Virginia and Arkansas. The fact that Paronychia virginica is considered rare in these and the other states where it has been found (Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas, West Virginia) and exhibits such wide gaps in its distribution, suggests that it is a relictual species. The local abundance of such relicts (e.g., Silene regia), in combination with the richness of endemics for so small a geographic area, is evidence that the Ketona Glades have supported natural communities similar to those of the present day for a very long time.

Rhynchospora capillacea Torr.

One of the first finds on the initial, canoe-based expedition of May 30, 1992, after Marshallia mohrii and Spigelia gentianoides, was of a wiry-leaved sedge in crevices at the very base of a strongly sloping glade above the Little Cahaba River. The plant proved to be Rhynchospora capillacea Torr. (A. et al. 6676, UNA, VDB), a range extension of over 400 km to the southwest from the nearest previous collection site in northeastern Tennessee (Campbell County). The species has not been seen in Tennessee in many years and is possibly extirpated (Robert Kral, pers. comm. 1992). The Bibb County population would be by far the southernmost known, but for the relatively recent discovery of a population in Kerr County, Texas (Jones and Jones 1990).

Rhynchospora capillacea has yet to be found anywhere in Alabama except the few m² of nearly bare rock just above the Little Cahaba River where we collected it. Because it has been found only in the glade-river ecotone of a single site, R. capillacea, like Baptisia australis, cannot be considered part of the characteristic Ketona Glade flora.

On June 21, 1992 we had the pleasure to show some of the glades we had discovered up to that time to Angus Gholson, Robert Godfrey and Robert Kral. One of the many high points of the day was the collection (A. et al. 6754, NY, UNA, US, VDB) of Rhynchospora thornei Kral, both a state record and the first collection of the species outside of the Coastal Plain.

This is among the most diminutive species of the genus, very similar to Rhynchospora divergens Chapman ex M.A. Curtis, a common but easily overlooked species primarily of the Coastal Plain. Rhynchospora thornei differs chiefly by having achenes with perianth bristles (Kral 1977). These bristles seem somewhat vestigial in nature, usually very short, unpigmented (translucent), and easily detached. Plants collected (A. and S. 7014, 7015, VDB) from one Ketona Glade population differed from all previous collections in that the bristles are somewhat longer and more pigmented, but were determined by Robert Kral to be R. thornei.

Prior to the discovery of this species in Alabama, in the Ridge and Valley Province, this former federal Candidate (C2) species was known from only a half-dozen collections, all from the Coastal Plain and from three states: Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina (Richard LeBlond, N.C. Natural Heritage Program, pers. comm. 1995). It was found subsequently at Coastal Plain localities in Alabama, beginning later in 1992 with a chalk glade in Dallas County (A. and S. 6921, VDB). Rhynchospora thornei has since been found at additional Ridge and Valley sites in Cherokee County, Alabama (J. Allison and A. Schotz 9519, UNA, VDB) and Floyd County, Georgia (A. 7776, GA, VDB), suggesting that the geographic range of Rhynchospora thornei is not fully known.

On the Ketona Glades and elsewhere, Rhynchospora thornei is a plant of microhabitats that are usually moist during winter and spring, irrigated by seepage, but which may become quite dry in summer and fall. Another Bibb County habitat for the species, and one unlike any in which it had previously been found, is crevices and shallow soil accumulations in a rocky creek bed (A. 6764, AUA, VDB). There, R. thornei is exposed during low water but inundated for much of the winter and after heavy rains. Perhaps this moisture regime is not very different in effect from the few seepage areas on Ketona Glades where R. thornei grows.