Here's Pyxie!

Pyxie (Pyxidanthera barbulata), near Zuni, Va (3/16/19)

I was able to shout that on a recent weekend in southeast Virginia, but was certainly not the first to do so. That "honor" goes to Bayard Long in 1936.  Long was a botanist most associated with the Philadelphia Botanical Club, collector of approximately 80,000 plant specimens, and long-time friend and associate of Dr. M.L. Fernald (an account of Long's career, and publications, as well as the following image of Long, can be found in Rhodora 72:130-136)

Bayard Long was part of an infamous botanical collecting excursion near Franklin, Virginia that resulted in nine "new to Virginia" or state record plants being found.  Long was later quoted as saying, "this is real botanizing!" in the fascinating recount of the trip (Fernald, M.L. 1937, Rhodora 39: nos 465-468) (Also reprinted by Fernald in; Contributions from the Gray Herbarium of Harvard University, 1937, and selected excerpts included in Frost & Musselman 1987: Castanea 52:16-46.)



One wonders if Pyxidanthera would have gone unnoticed had it not been for Long.  In an earlier paper on the "Plants from the Outer Coastal Plain of Virginia" (Rhodora 38: nos. 455-466), Fernald credited Long as follows, "...with his detailed knowledge of Coastal Plain plants and their proper habitats and his unequalled (sic) persistence and skill in finding them, no critical botanizing in eastern Virginia can be wholly successful without him". 

In terms of the overall significance of their botanical finds, Fernald said, "We had stumbled into what we had sought for four years, real unspoiled pine barren in Virginia".

View of "mature" longleaf pines at Blackwater Ecological Preserve, VA
perhaps not unlike what Fernald and Long would have seen if they looked up!

Today, Fernald & Long's collecting site is protected and being actively managed as Blackwater Ecologic Preserve.  Longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) is a prominent tree in parts of the Preserve, which for Virginia, is really significant. At the extreme northern edge of it's natural range, the Commonwealth is believed to support fewer than 200 INDIVIDUAL mature, native longleaf pines (Virginia Department of Forestry 2014, Status Report).

Pyxidanthera range map; 
Kartesz, J.T., The Biota of North America Program (BONAP). 2015
Taxonomic Data Center. (http://www.bonap.net/tdc). 

But back to Pyxie (Pyxidanthera barbulata). Sometimes known as Pyxie-Moss or other related and confusing common names, Pyxie is restricted to the Atlantic Coastal Plain of eastern North America.
Sorrie and Weakley 2001 (Castanea 66:5-82) recognized Pyxie as a coastal plain endemic with a bimodal phytogeographic pattern, as shown to the left.




Pyxie's distribution has a large spatial disjunction that was significantly larger until Fernald's team found it in Virginia, or as they stated, "the first station discovered between southern New Jersey and North Carolina".  According to Fernald, "Pyxidanthera barbulata literally carpeted the ground in many areas".  The best approximation of that pattern I could see today, is shown on the image below, although at this distance (and due to my lack of photographic skill) the Pyxie clumps appear almost as bare "sugar sand".

Pyxie as an abundant ground cover at Blackwater Ecologic Preserve, VA

Pyxie covered by pine needles

Frost & Musselman used Pyxidanthera as a nominal in one of the community types they recognized at Blackwater in 1987 (See citation above), while noting it only"at this one spot".  They referred to this community as "Pond Pine Flat" with both Pond Pine (Pinus serotina) and Turkey Oak (Quercus laevis) as dominants and nominals.  Interestingly, in my experience, these species usually occur in fairly different habitats and soil moisture regimes.  Fernald referred to the habitat as "thin woods of Pinus taeda and Quercus laevis".  He indicated (with a footnote) that they found this oak "to be the regular species of the area" at its northern range limit.  Much like longleaf pine, this range limit has not been significantly extended northward since then.  Turkey Oak is still found at the site but is, perhaps, not as abundant as suggested by Frost & Musselman. (I hope to address this in detail in the future).

Turkey Oak (Quercus laevis) buds (3/16/19)

Turkey Oak (Quercus laevis) stump sprouts (3/16/19), approximately 2 years after last fire; note main trunk
broken off and fallen to right of image

Pond Pine (Pinus serotina) stump sprout, same site as previous;
also approximately 2 years since last fire; note main stem still standing but dead

Since 1986, there have been approximately 16 prescribed fires here with undoubtedly significant effects. 

Structural and density differences at Blackwater Ecologic Preserve
Right: burned on ~ 2 year average return interval since 1986
Left: unburned during same interval

For now, Pyxie seems to be doing just fine!