Noteworthy Collections: ALABAMA

Abstract

Agalinis auriculata (Michx.) Blake (OROBANCHACEAE)—Pickens County: Black Belt prairie, in association with Schizachyrium scoparium (Michx.) Nash, Solidago nemoralis Aiton, Solidago rigida L. ssp. glabrata L. Braun, Helianthus strumosus L., and a scattering of Juniperus virginiana L. var. virginiana; ca. 15 m N of Perry Long Road at a point ca. 1.4 road km NW of State Route 17 near Cochrane; T23N, R3W, NE1/4 of SE1/4 of Section 11; 33u04918.90N, 88u15954.30W; 6 September 2007, Schotz 2069 (UNA). Significance. This specimen constitutes the first collection of this taxon in Alabama since 1940, based on a collection housed at Cornell University from Montgomery County by O.L. Justice and M.D. Whitehead [Justice & Whitehead s.n. (BH)]. The population consisted of 31 individual plants, all of which produced several flowers during the 2007 growing season. A species of conservation importance, A. auriculata has been rarely documented from Alabama, represented by only three earlier collections from the northern and western regions of the state. Samuel Buckley is credited as the first to document the species in the State, likely having discovered the plants from Wilcox County in October 1841 (Buckley resided in Wilcox County during the early 1840s, and collected extensively in the County). Nearly 85 yr would elapse before the species would once again be detected in Alabama, from an old field in Montgomery County by Roland Harper on 14 September 1925 [Harper s.n. (GH, PH)]. Eight years later on 13 September 1933, an additional discovery was made, also by Roland Harper, on a limestone slope near Woodland Hills in Morgan County [Harper 3111 (GH)]. Apart from the last-mentioned specimen, collections of A. auriculata from Alabama are primarily centered upon the Black Belt physiographic province, a region of the state defined by a mosaic of prairie and forest underlain by calcareous substrates.