In search of a rare, white-flowered Gentian in the panhandle of Florida — 2015-12-05

Aha! You probably thought you had seen the last of me for the year, but I have this one last post up my sleeve. This past weekend, Walter and I made the 775-mile (1250-km) round trip from the upstate of South Carolina to the panhandle of Florida to meet some friends and search for the elusive, Gentiana pennelliana or Wiregrass Gentian.

Jim Drake, in his wonderful book, “Gentians of the United States” writes:

With the probable exception of Antarctica, Gentians occur on every continent, and can be found in a variety of habitats from deserts, prairies, savannas, temperate forests, rainforests and through the arctic tundra regions.

According to the Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants, the particular Gentian species we were looking for, Wiregrass Gentian, is endemic to only 9 counties in the panhandle of Florida. The term, “endemic”, means that it is restricted to one particular area and can be found nowhere else in the world. It usually begins blooming toward the end of December, but I had seen recent images of it in flower in late November. I had told my naturalist and photographer friend, Eleanor Deitrich, that I really wanted to photograph it this year, if possible, so she contacted me, and we made arrangements for me to come down to Tallahassee so that I could see the flowers in their natural habitat. Here is an image of one that I photographed during our weekend visit:

Wiregrass Gentian

Walter Ezell and I were staying with Eleanor at her home in Tallahassee. She is a big “mover and shaker” in the wildflower scene in the panhandle of Florida, and she shared with us many of her projects and her work with state personnel in efforts to preserve wildflower habitats in the panhandle. On our way down to Tallahassee, we had stopped at the Gin Creek Plantation vineyard in Thomasville, Georgia, and had bought a few bottles of local wine which we shared when we arrived at Eleanor’s place. There was still a good bit of light out, so she showed us around her backyard which she is restoring with native plants. She and some friends have done a huge amount of work ripping out privet and other non-natives and creating a wonderful native wildflower garden. Walking in the restored area is like being in a botanical garden, complete with plant tags and lined walkways. I don’t know where she gets the energy to maintain such a wonderful place.

We finished the guided tour and settled down for a wonderful meal and some more wine, all sprinkled with conversation about wildflower preservation and plans for the next day. Soon it was time to turn in. We had driven for 7+ hours and it was catching up with us.

Shortly after sunrise, Eleanor’s friend Virginia Craig met us at the house, and we began the field trip. Walter, Eleanor, Virginia, and I piled into Eleanor’s car and drove to the small town of Hosford where we would meet Floyd Griffith, Annie Schmidt, and Nina Raymond at a favorite breakfast hangout, T&P Foods. After breakfast, Virginia and I joined Floyd in his vehicle, and we drove west on Hwy. 65 to our first stop.

Here is a county map of the state of Florida showing, in green the 9 counties where Wiregrass Gentian has been located. The county in red is Liberty County where we spent most of our time:

Hwy. 65 is a well-maintained two-lane highway that cuts through the center of the western portion of the 632,000+ acre, 989 square mile (256,000+ hectare, 2560 square km) Apalachicola National Forest, providing access to many of the forest service roads in the area. See red highlighted highway area on the map (Courtesy of the US Department of Agriculture) below:

After entering the Apalachicola National Forest, we pulled over at FR 117 and parked our vehicles. Eleanor had seen Wiregrass Gentian, in prior years, along the unmowed portion of Hwy. 65 near where we were parked, so we walked the edges for about a quarter-mile (.4 km) in search of some of the plants to photograph.

The bright white flowers are up to 1 inch (2.5 cm) wide and are borne on stems that are generally no taller than 6-8 inches (15-20 cm). Since the roadside grasses are much taller than the flowers, they are not easy to spot until you get right up on them. We did manage to find about 20 of the plants in flower. I was very excited to see this Gentian for the first time, and didn’t waste any time setting up my tripod on the edge of the road to record our finds. Here are images of some of the plants we found on this portion of the trip:

We got to this spot just as the flowers were opening. Many of the Gentian species have flowers that open after sunrise and close at night. Fortunately, we didn’t get to these before they opened. You may notice that the shape of the flower is quite similar to Gentiana autumnalis or Pine Barren Gentian, a species that I photographed in early November in the Green Swamp Preserve. According to Jim Drake, at one time, early botanists considered Gentiana pennelliana a color form of Gentiana autumnalis. Later study and research by the botanist, Francis W. Pennell in 1919, led to the promotion of Gentiana pennelliana to species rank.

Regardless, it is a truly wonderful wildflower to see and photograph. Here are some additional shots of Wiregrass Gentian from that site:

Here are some shots of the group members beside the road discussing botanical things:

Left to right are Floyd, Virginia, Eleanor, and Nina.

Here are four shots of the group taken by Walter Ezell:

Left to right: Annie, Nina, and Floyd

Left to right: Eleanor and Jim

Left to right: Jim, Annie, Virginia, Nina, Eleanor, and Floyd

Left to right: Virginia, Nina, Annie, Jim, Floyd, and Eleanor

After wrapping up our photography at this site, we decided it was time for lunch, so we drove on down Hwy. 65 to the town of Sumatra, and stopped at the Family Coastal Restaurant for some good seafood. At this point, I should mention that Floyd, our chauffeur, is a public defender for the state of Florida. During the day, while driving from stop to stop, he kept us in stitches with unbelievable tales of some of his court cases. I’m sure he had many more to tell, but if any of those tales are to be believed, he does have an interesting job!

When lunch was done, there was another spot that Eleanor and Floyd decided was a must to visit. That site was at Fort Gadsden State Park. The road leading in to the park was gated, so we had to walk a short distance to find the flowers. While everyone else was unloading their camera gear, I joined Virginia inside the gate, and we walked off the road into a fire break where she showed me a couple of very interesting flowering plants which I had never photographed. The first one was Bartonia verna or White Screwstem. The plant produces one or more quarter-inch (6 mm) flowers on a thin stem about 2 inches (5 cm) tall. If she had not pointed them out to me, I never would have noticed them:

Nearby, were more of the Wiregrass Gentian in bloom:

Our group had split from the rest of the group which was now on the road to the fort. We cut across part of the field that separated us and joined the others. They were busy studying and photographing a carnivorous plant called Pinguicula pumila or Dwarf Butterwort. There were a number of these plants on the upper side of a depression next to the road, but the flowers were unopened. Whether or not they had already bloomed or not yet bloomed was uncertain, but I did get a shot of the sticky leaves which the plant uses to catch small insects:

Within eye-shot were more Wiregrass Gentians — one of which was the unusual 4-petaled form:

On our way back to the cars, Virginia pointed out a small patch of another unusual flower called Burmannia capitata or Southern Bluethread. I had seen pictures of this weird flower, but I had never photographed it. The tiny cluster of flowers at the top of the thin stem is barely larger than one-eight of an inch (3 mm) wide. I certainly would not have noticed this one had Virginia not pointed it out to us:

The next site was off Hwy. 65 on FR 101. I won’t divulge exactly where we finally ended up, since it is the site of an exceedingly rare carnivorous plant called Pinguicula ionantha or Godfrey’s Butterwort. It is endemic to the state of Florida, where it occurs only in the central Florida Panhandle. It is threatened by the loss of its habitat, and for this reason, it is a federally listed threatened species. Unfortunately, we did not find them in bloom since their bloom time is mid- to late February. But, we did see several beautiful groups of leafy rosettes. Here are a couple of shots:

Seeing these was a huge surprise for me, because this one is on my life list to photograph when in bloom.

This location provided another surprise for me — two species of Parnassia: Parnassia caroliniana or Carolina Grass-of-Parnassus and Parnassia grandifolia or Large-leaf Grass-of-Parnassus — both growing sympatrically! I have photographed both of these species, but in decidedly different environments. In the Carolinas, P. caroliniana grows on the Coastal Plain in a similar habitat as that of the Apalachicola National Forest, but our version of P. grandifolia is found only in wet habitats in the mountains. Here are images of two of the many examples of both species we found at this site:

Left: Carolina Grass-of-Parnassus; right: Large-leaf Grass-of-Parnassus

After photographing these beauties, I looked around and noticed Floyd hovering over another white flower. This one turned out to be an early flowering of Chaptalia tomemtosa or Wooly Sunbonnets also called Pineland Daisy:

We also found a couple of examples of another widely occurring carnivorous plant called Pinguicula lutea or Yellow Butterwort:

In addition, about every 100 feet (30 meters) we saw additional Wiregrass Gentians, some still in bud:

A couple of people in the group had heard from a friend of another occurrence of Wiregrass Gentian, but it was south of our location in Franklin County in a 200,000+ acre (81,000 hectares) area called Tate’s Hell State Forest. So, we packed up our gear and headed south.

According to legend, here is how Tate’s Hell got its name:

The Legend of TATE’S HELL…

Local legend has it that a farmer by the name of Cebe Tate, armed with only a shotgun and accompanied by his hunting dogs, journeyed into the swamp in search of a Florida panther that was killing his livestock. Although there are several versions of this story, the most common describes Tate as being lost in the swamp for seven days and nights, bitten by a snake, and drinking from the murky waters to curb his thirst. Finally he came to a clearing near Carrabelle, living only long enough to murmur the words, “My name is Cebe Tate, and I just came from Hell.” Cebe Tate’s adventure took place in 1875 and ever since, the area has been known as Tate’s Hell, the legendary and forbidden swamp.

The drive down was quite interesting: large open savannahs, huge potholes, and a few shallow stream crossings. Along the way we saw Buteo lineatus or Red-shouldered Hawk, Ardea Herodias or Great Blue Heron, and a number of other wildlife (none of which I managed to photograph). Floyd, Virginia, and I were in the lead car with me navigating from a map of the location, and the rest of the group (Eleanor, Walter, Annie, and Nina) were behind us. Every now and then, we would lose sight of the other vehicle and would have to stop for them to catch up. It seems that there were many animated discussions of sightings of local flora necessitating a stop and a reference to any of a number of reference books to identify said flora. Quite an interesting foray into the wilds of panhandle Florida!

We finally arrived at the exact spot where the Wiregrass Gentian was “supposed” to be “easily” found. It looked like the place was overgrown and had not been recently burned, but we unpacked our gear, put on our rubber boots and set out across the savannah in search of the white flowers. We soon came to a very large shallow depression filled with a species of Spartina or Cord Grass. This is usually a good sign of standing water, and that was indeed the case. Annie had the site mapped on her GPS and was directing us across the wet depression. We wanted to see the Wiregrass Gentian at this site, so we slogged across in single file. We managed to reach the other side where we looked around for quite a while with no success. I did manage to take a small pano of the area from the other side, though:

Even though we did not find the Wiregrass Gentian at this site, I thought this was one of the prettiest savannahs that we had seen all day — perfect finish to a day full of new plants for me, and a day of fun and jovial companionship with new friends.

But the day was hardly over. Annie had invited us out to her place at Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines Preserve where her husband, Jack Stites is the land manager. When we arrived, we found a fire pit all ablaze next to comfortable outdoor seating and music coming from an outbuilding packed full of drumming equipment. Jack came over, introduced himself, and offered us some adult beverages. Annie had prepared, in advance, what I can only call a sumptuous feast of crackers, breads, and cheeses. But that was just the first course. When the evening stars came out and the temps cooled down, we all headed indoors for the main course. Annie had prepared a standing rib roast that was so tender that you could cut it with a fork. Also prepared was salmon, fresh vegetables (squash, zucchini, and tomatoes) cooked in Gruyère cheese, a potato dish (to die for) that Nina had prepared, and chocolate cookies and strawberries for dessert! Wow! Such a gracious and entertaining host and hostess. It would be hard to beat such a layout, and all of that prepared before she spent the day in the field with us. She gave Jack much of the credit, but non-the-less, it was a feast fit for a king.

Eleanor, Walter, Virginia, and I finally said our good-byes to the rest of the gathering, since we had a long drive back to Tallahassee, and we headed to Eleanor’s home where Walter and I would spend another night. At Eleanor’s place, we were also treated like royalty. Our guest suite was perfect for our weekend getaway. We managed to get back in time to catch the last half of the ACC tournament before we turned in for the night.

The next morning, before we were to head back home, Eleanor showed us a huge painting that she had commissioned from an artist friend, Linda Hall in May of 2015. It is 8 feet by 8 feet (2.5 meters by 2.5 meters) and represents one of the many photographic images Eleanor has taken of Wiregrass Gentians in the Apalachicola National Forest. The particular image that the artist used is of a couple of flowers which show the rare pinkish-purple lobe appendages that are sometimes found on these flowers. We didn’t find any on out weekend trip, but there’s always next year. 😉

I’ve only covered the high points of our weekend “vacation” to the panhandle of Florida. Being able to see and photograph four new species as well as meeting a number of interesting and like-minded botanists who I can now call friends, makes it a trip I will always remember with fondness and excitement. I hope to repay the gracious hosts one day when they visit our neck of the woods and perhaps show them some plants whose names they will be able to strike off of their life lists.

— Jim