Posted in ANGIOSPERMS - DICOTS
Ehretia acuminata R. Brown Origin: Not native (China, Japan, Australia)
Form: An upright deciduous tree to about 15 m tall with grayish-black bark.
Leaves: Alternate, simple, elliptic or obovate
in outline, 5-13 cm long, 4-6 cm wide; margins
serrate
Posted in ANGIOSPERMS - MONOCOTS
Caryota mitis Loureiro 34
Origin: Not native (India to the Philippine Islands), potentially invasive
Form: A clustering multistemmed palm with expanded, fan-shaped leaf segments; to about 8 m tall, individual trunks typically less than 15 cm dbh.
Leaves: Bipinnately divided, 2-3 m long; segments fan-shaped dark green, strongly ribbed and resembling a fish tail; lateral segments straight along 1 side, jagged or toothed on the other, the terminal segment straight on 2 sides, jagged and toothed at the apex.
Posted in ANGIOSPERMS - MONOCOTS
Palm trees have long been associated with Florida’s balmy, tropical weather. Vacationers new to the state often arrive with mental images of wide sandy beaches bordered on their landward edges by picturesque lines of curving trunks and gently swaying fronds. Whether or not these romantic visions are founded in truth, the fact remains that the palm tree is one of the Sunshine State’s most common and persistent symbols. Florida’s formal relationship with the palm dates to 1953, the year the legislature voted to designate the sabal palm (Sabal palmetto) as Florida’s official state tree.
Posted in ANGIOSPERMS - DICOTS
Avicennia germinans (Linnaeus) Linnaeus 58 Origin: Native
Form: Bushy evergreen tree of tidal flats and other shallow saltwater habitats, potentially to about 25 m tall, usually much shorter in Florida.
Leaves: Opposite, simple, varying from elliptic to lanceolati in outline, 5-12 cm long, 2-4 cm wide, upper surfaces green, lower surfaces copiously covered with grayish pubescence, often with
Posted in GYMNOSPERMS
Taxodium ascendens Brongniart
Color Photos 10,11 Origin: Native
Form: Small to potentially large monoecious, deciduous tree, larger specimens to a maximum of about 40 m tall but usually not exceeding about 25 m; bark more or less narrowly and shallowly furrowed, usually deep enough to slightly insert a finger between the ridges.
Leaves: Mature leaves needlelike, green, 3-6 mm long (leaves on young trees sometimes much longer), those in the crown and on older branches closely appressed to the branchlets, on younger trees and branches often spreading and featherlike (and then appearing similar to those of bald-cypress).
Posted in GYMNOSPERMS
Callitris glaucophylla Joy Thompson & L. A. Johnson Color Photos 4,5
Origin: Not native (Australia), potentially invasive
Form: Large coniferous shrub or tree to about 30 m tall in its native range, not exceeding about 20 m in Florida; bark on lower trunk brown with narrow vertical ridges and furrows; branches grayish and more or less smooth.
Posted in GYMNOSPERMS
The cedars, yews, pines, cypress trees, Norfolk Island pine, and podocarps are among Florida’s most primitive arborescent plants. All are classified within the order Conifer- ales. The conifers - as they are commonly called - constitute the largest of three orders of gymnosperms, a group of seed-bearing woody plants that is distinguished from the more recently evolved angiosperms by having seeds borne naked (often but not always in a protective cone) rather than enclosed in a fleshy ovary. The name gymnosperm literally means “naked seed.” There are about 820 gymnosperms worldwide, at least 600 of which are conifers.
