A four-man team spent five years gathering data for a floristicsurvey of Lauderdale County. They discovered the sedge during thestudy, and now, anyone wanting to know if a certain plant is foundin the Meridian area can get their answer in the current issue ofthe journal Rhodora. JoVonn Hill, a Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry ExperimentStation research associate, worked on the project with LucasMajure, a Mississippi State University graduate now pursuing aPh.D. in botany at the University of Florida and working with theFlorida Museum of Natural History.
The team also consisted of ChrisDoffitt in MSU s Department of Biological Sciences and TerrenceMajure, retired from the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science. From spring 2004 to fall 2009, they documented and described theplants, or flora, found in the county. We recorded a total of 1,175 plant species in LauderdaleCounty, Hill said. While doing our survey, we were the first tocollect a type of primrose and dovefoot geranium in Mississippi,and we recorded one type of sedge for the first time in NorthAmerica. Majure said the sedge was first found in Meridian s Rose HillCemetery, commonly referred to as the Gypsy cemetery because it isthe burial site of the woman known as the Gypsy Queen.
Gypsies,also known as Roma, are a nomadic ethnic group who live mostly inEurope. The sedge we found is native to Russia and Japan and other partsof Eurasia, Majure said. The people who visited her grave forthe funeral and afterwards may have unintentionally brought thesedge seed in clothes or on flowers. Majure said this speculation has not been proven, and after thesedge was documented at this cemetery, it was found in a few othergraveyards in the county. He said these specimens may have beenspread by mowing equipment, although it was also found in one otherlocation in the county, an early 20th century campground forvagrants.
The researchers found 186 introduced species in the county and 47species classified as rare and uncommon species by the MississippiNatural Heritage Program s special plant tracking and watch lists. In doing these exhaustive searches, we found a lot of plants wedidn t know actually existed in the state and certain speciesliving beyond their known range, Majure said. Hill said the flora of only eight of Mississippi s 82 countieshave been comprehensively surveyed. Amite, Yalobusha, DeSoto,Attala, Oktibbeha, Monroe, Grenada and Washington counties are theothers with complete floristic surveys.
Documenting the flora at the county level is important, as itprovides insight into the community composition of differenthabitats and provides a better understanding of the regionalflora, Hill said. Additionally, surveys like this one providebaseline data to guide future conservation or restoration projectsin the region. Meridian historically has been a hub of railroad activity, and therailroad and highway system is responsible for the introduction ofmany of the exotic species found in the county. A lot of containers and cargo used plant material as a packingsubstance, and these often contained seeds, Hill said. Manyexotic species were introduced as cargo was moved around andunloaded at train depots.
The team also heavily surveyed major bodies of water and thesurrounding areas because they correctly assumed that these areaswould have introduced species. One challenge they had while doing the flora survey was that noguide to the plants of Mississippi exists. They had to use avariety of keys for plant identification, including plant guidesfrom North Carolina and Florida, comparative plant collections inMississippi and a reference guide known as the Flora of NorthAmerica. Although there are quite a few people interested in producing aflora guide of the state, none exist now, so we had to use avariety of sources to identify the plants, Hill said.
The study also characterized the climate and topography of thearea. Their report explains how researchers chose the individualsites where the flora was surveyed. Majure said they worked primarily in natural areas outsidecommunities, but since human activity is so prevalent, they didsurvey many areas within Meridian as well. Wherever people go, they tend to take plants with them, andwe re actually adding to the floristic diversity, or number ofspecies of plants you might find in an area, just by movingaround, Majure said. We focused on areas that are heavilydisturbed by human activity.
We didn t look in areas where thingswere actually planted, like in yards, but we counted plants thathad spread beyond their original locations. The researchers identified nine plant communities in the county. A plant community is an area that has very similarcharacteristics in terms of soils and water flow, Majure said. You can characterize a community by the plants that live there.
The plant communities in Lauderdale County are anthropogenicallydisturbed areas, floodplain forests, marshes, mesic forests, riverbank, river channel, spring seeps, upland forests and xeric areas. Anthropogenically disturbed areas are those disturbed by humanactivity. They include roadsides, urban areas, lawns orconstruction areas. Floodplain forests are common in the county andare associated with nearly all the perennial rivers and streams. Marshes are open, unforested areas of shallow, standing water thatmay or may not dry up during dry times of the year.
Mesic forestsare also common throughout the county and are found on relativelyflat to steeply sloping areas along some of the geologicformations. River banks and river channel plant communities are associated withthe watercourses in the county. Spring seeps and spring-fed peatbogs were found in small areas throughout the county, usuallywithin or along the edges of forest systems. Upland forests arealso found throughout the county on loamy, rock or sandy soils onridge tops or areas with moderate to very steep slopes.
Xeric areasare a combination of sandhill and scrub communities. Find the complete publication online at doi/abs/10.3119/0035-4902-113.956.365 . -30- Released March 15, 2012 Contact: JoVonn Hill, (662) 325-2085 Publications may download image at 200 ppi. I am Fashion Accessories Agents writer, reports some information about thrust trolling motor , zip line kit.
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