Whats in Bloom

Zamia integrifolia (Zamiaceae) Origin: Florida and Georgia, Cuba, Bahamas? We have featured plants before which do not bloom, most of them spore-releasing ferns. Our featured Florida native this month, coontie, is a cycad, which like ferns is a group of ancient plants...

Roystonea regia, Arecaceae Origin: Florida, Mexico, Central America, and the Carribean Royal palms are the tallest palms native to Florida, and really stand out with their massive and smooth white trunks. Found in the warmer and wetter parts of our state, Roystonea...

Sabal palmetto (Arecaceae) Origin: Gulf Coast and Southern Atlantic States of the U.S, Cuba, Bahamas This month’s featured plant is near and dear to the hearts of many Floridians. Although not technically a tree, Sabal palmetto is the state tree of Florida (as well as...

Thelypteris kunthii (Thelypteridaceae) Origin: Southeastern United States south to the Caribbean Although this feature is supposed to showcase plants in bloom, not all plants do, in fact, bloom. The farther a plant’s biology goes back in time, the less complicated its...

Tillandsia utriculata (Bromeliaceae)
Origin: Florida and the Caribbean south to Venezuela

Epiphytes are plants which grow upon other plants, without taking any nourishment from them. Here at Selby Gardens we specialize in the study, conservation, and display of epiphytic plants, and here in Florida, people have daily opportunities to see epiphytes. […]

Ipomoea alba (Convolvulaceae) Origin: New World Tropics Moonvine is an aggressive twining vine with large white flowers that open in the early evening and close in the morning. The flowers are intensely fragrant, and attract large hawk moths which serve to pollinate...

Gossypium hirsutum (Malvaceae) Origin: Florida and the West Indies to Central America Wild cotton is an endangered species in Florida. Habitat loss due to human development, is the usual reason plants and animals get placed on such a list. Cotton, however, was once...

Acer rubrum (Sapindaceae) Origin: Eastern United States Found from Eastern Texas to the coastal forests of North Carolina and Nova Scotia all the way south to the Everglades, red maple is one of the most common trees in the Eastern United States. It is adapted to a...

Florida is a land of many habitats. Coastal dunes, river banks, dry scrub, wet prairie, and pinelands all vary from each other, and all feature different plants. They also feature some of the same plants. One they all share in common is saw palmetto. Bane to the existence of early explorers and modern botanists alike, it gets its common name from the minutely-toothed petioles, which can really do a number on your shins when hiking through a dense clump of the small palms. Unlike most palms, which feature a vertical trunk and grow to be very tall, saw palmetto forms a trunk which scrambles around on top of the ground, sometimes for many meters. When they do grow vertically, they rarely reach over three or four meters tall.

Fall is one of the best times of year in Florida to see native wildflowers blooming. We have so many different habitats represented in our state, from sandy beaches to wet swamps and everything in between, and wildflowers can be found in all of them. A versatile genus which has species represented in many of these diverse habitats, and can be seen blooming everywhere right now, is Solidago. This wildflower can be found from the beaches to the prairies to recently burned pinelands.