Coontie, a Graceful Addition to the Garden

Coontie is one of my favorite plants. It is an evergreen cycad, growing to about 3 feet tall and is native to the Florida peninsula. Its natural habitat is dominated by pines growing on well drained sandy to sandy-loam soil. Coontie is a great choice as a foundation plant because it never needs pruning. It grows as broad as it is tall and can tolerate full sun or deep shade, but I think it is happiest in filtered shade.

When we first moved to our home, the lovely brick foundation was completely covered by boxwoods and azaleas that needed a lot of pruning. We removed them all. We planted two coonties flanking the front steps leading to the porch and front door. I had heard they were slow growing, so I fertilized them with organic fertilizer.

They surprised me by growing fairly quickly and I do not attribute the growth rate completely to the fertilizer. Rather, the soil conditions created by the limey cement walkway and brick and mortar foundation and steps seem perfect for coontie. Ferns also like it in this soil; we have a nice stand of maidenhair fern and leatherwood fern growing along this north facing brick foundation.

We also planted two coontie under our huge live oak tree to give an evergreen presence among the woodland wildflowers that come and go throughout the year. They are so graceful looking and did I mention they don’t need pruning?

Every year the female plants produce brown cones that are composed of fleshy bright orange seeds when the cone ripens. Some animal must be eating them, perhaps an opossum, because these coonties are spreading up hill; we find new seedlings regularly.

Coontie, once established, is drought tolerant. It is rated moderately salt tolerant – tolerant of salt winds but not of salt water. It is cold hardy to 15 degrees F. In south Florida, it is the sole larval food plant of the atala butterfly which brings us to a bit of history about coontie.

All parts of coontie are poisonous; however Florida’s early inhabitants, both the Timucuan and Calusa peoples figured out how to remove the toxin cycasin from the large starchy tuber that grows underground. The Seminoles learned the technique of maceration and washing from the earlier people and made it into bread. The common name coontie is derived from the Seminole phrase “conti hateka” which means white root or white bread.

By the 1880s, settlers created mills in Miami to process this starch and by 1911 it became known as Florida arrowroot. During WWI one mill processed up to 18 tons daily for military purchase. Needless to say, coontie was over exploited and to this day little remains in its native habitat. (Probably little of its habitat remains either.).This did not bode well for the atala butterfly, whose tiny caterpillars have to have coontie to feed upon. They are able to break down the cycasin, just as monarchs have evolved to break down the toxins in milkweeds.

The good news is that coontie has more recently become a popular landscape plant in south Florida, both in commercial and residential settings. The atala butterfly population is recovering and will continue to do so as long as folks remember that atala caterpillars will denude their plants from time to time. “Give me holes in my plants, but leave me the butterflies, please!” to paraphrase Joni Mitchell. Coontie remains on Florida’s Commercially Exploited Plant List and the collection of coontie from the wild is prohibited.

We won’t attract atalas here in North Florida, but coontie has so many other attributes to make it a great choice for Tallahassee landscapes. Plant one today!

American Beautyberry

The pale pink blooms of American Beautyberry, Callicarpa Americana, appear in early summer, clustered along the arching branches of this deciduous native shrub. The flowers are highly attractive to pollinators and are followed by showy clusters of bright purple fruit. The purple fruit are edible and favored by birds, like catbirds and mockingbirds, for fall and winter forage.

Beautyberry is tough and easy to grow. It’s not picky about soil conditions and is often found growing naturally in the woods and more wild yards (planted by birds that have feasted on its fruit). It grows in sun and shade, but flowers and fruits best when it gets full, direct sun for at least part of the day. The berries are edible, but mostly flavorless and not sweet. Some industrious folks make a jelly with them – lots of sugar added! They are however, very ornamental and may be used to add a pop of color to cakes, salads, etc. The crushed leaves have been used traditionally stuffed into horse harnesses or rubbed on skin to repel mosquitos. Recently scientists with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's research division isolated three beautyberry compounds effective in repelling biting insects: callicarpenal, intermedeol and spathulenol. In particular, the callicarpenal proved to be as effective as DEET in fighting mosquitoes. Other tests found beautyberry compounds also repelled ticks and fire ants.

Beautyberry blooms in the morning light here at Native Nurseries.

Clusters of attractive beautyberries. Great food for wildlife. 

Meet the American Azalea

While growing up in Tallahassee, I began to recognize the arrival of spring by the show of white, pink, and fuchsia blooms of azalea shrubs. The house I grew up in had large, mature azalea hedges with a variety of different blooms. Every spring, my mom would bring in vases full of them and my dad loved to point out the showy shrubs as we drove through town.

I guess I assumed these plants were native, but most likely I never gave it a thought. I didn’t think to differentiate a native plant from a non-native one. The azaleas we are so familiar with are actually transplants from Asia, favored by the horticultural industry for their fast, vigorous, and dense growth of evergreen leaves and large blooms. Curiously, I have found the lack of these more obvious qualities to be what leads our native azaleas their unique beauty.

I was introduced to native azaleas while working my first spring at Native Nurseries, when, to my amazement, the graceful bare branches exploded with clouds of deliciously fragrant blooms in a variety of colors.

Piedmont azalea in white with pink blush form. (Photo: Lilly Anderson-Messec)

The two earliest species to bloom are also our two most common; the Florida flame azalea, Rhododendron austrinum, and the Piedmont azalea, Rhododendron canescens. Because native azaleas are genetically variable, when grown from seed the individual plants within the same species can differ in the shape, size, and colors of bloom. The Piedmonts usually begin blooming first, varying in shades from lightly blushed white to deep pink. The Florida flames follow shortly after in sunny yellows, deep golds, tangerines, and apricot shades.

Unlike their Asian cousins, which stay leafy and green year round, most of our native azaleas are deciduous. This quality makes for a much more impressive show when the leafless branches erupt in masses of color unhindered by distracting foliage. It is a truly breathtaking sight!

Although they are not an ideal choice for the types of hedges Asian azaleas are often used for, our native azaleas are wonderful additions to the landscape nonetheless. They can be used to create a natural privacy screen when mixed with native evergreen shrubs and small trees. I often find them growing in similar situations in the wild, and I find this natural look of mixed deciduous and evergreen native shrubs much more attractive than a formal, screen-like hedge of one non-native evergreen. Those types of plantings are about as appealing as a fence, and our wildlife would agree.

Native mixed plantings allow you to appreciate the progression of the seasons as you watch the individual plants flower and change. Most importantly, our native birds, bees, butterflies and other wildlife depend on these plants to provide the food and shelter they desperately need as we continue to replace their natural habitat with barren lawns and non-native plants. Our native plants and wildlife have adapted to rely on each other to meet their specific needs, which non-native plants cannot provide.

Native azaleas are a prime example of this symbiotic relationship. The two species I have mentioned bloom early in spring, when few flowers are available. The fragrant, tubular blooms are perfectly timed to welcome home our hungry hummingbirds returning from their winter migration. In exchange for the nectar rich meal these flowers provide, the hummingbird pollinates the blooms, allowing the plant to produce seed.

These relationships are what make native plants like our wild azaleas not just special, but necessary. If we want to continue to enjoy wildlife like hummingbirds, then we must begin to see our yards as essential pieces of wildlife habitat. Find a spot in your yard for a native azalea or two, and aim to add more native plants every year.