Small-flower Meadowbeauty (Rhexia parviflora)

Rhexia parviflora in flower in June. Note the sparsely pubescent stem, presence of petioles, and the anthers which are longer than the filaments.

Photo Credit: Willow Mar

Global Rank: G2 - Imperiled
Legal Status: N/A
Family: Melastomataceae
State: AL, FL, GA
Nature Serve ID: 153109
Lifeform: Forb/herb
Date Inducted in National Collection: 12/10/2024

Description:

annual

Where is Small-flower Meadowbeauty (Rhexia parviflora) located in the wild?

States & Provinces:

Small-flower Meadowbeauty can historically be found in Alabama, Florida, Georgia

Which CPC Partners conserve Small-flower Meadowbeauty (Rhexia parviflora)?

Atlanta Botanical Garden

Not Sponsored

Conservation Actions

Assigned 12/10/24

CPC's Plant Sponsorship Program provides long term stewardship of rare plants in our National Collection. We are so grateful for all our donors who have made the Plant Sponsorship Program so successful. We are in the process of acknowledging all our wonderful plant sponsorship donors on our website. This is a work in progress and will be updated regularly.

Conservation Actions

Kelly Coles

11/18/2024

Atlanta Botanical Garden’s conservation field team visited populations of Rhexia parviflora in Tate’s Hell and Apalachicola National Forest during the summer of 2024. A site assessment of a roadside population found very low numbers of individuals. Only three flowering plants were found and 10 vegetative on a roadside with records of more than 3k plants. Likely threats to this population are untimely mowing, off road vehicles, and drought. Another population ABG visited was protected from road disturbance and occurred in a seasonally inundated wetland. Here, ABG observed over a thousand plants at different stages – fruiting, flowering, and vegetative. Plants asynchronously bloomed from June through at least the end of September, the last time ABG visited the site.

This large population was visited multiple times to monitor seed production. 20% of reproductive individuals were bagged with mesh organza bags to protect seeds from herbivory and to prevent them from dispersing prior to collection. Ultimately, 10% of these were collected for safeguarding; the other 10% were dispersed back into the population. Seeds are tiny and slip through the mesh bags very easily. Additionally, many bags exhibited signs of herbivory, with small holes chewed through. Due to humidity and wet site conditions, seeds looked like clumps of mud on the sides of the bags at the time of collection. It was noted that Rhexia parviflora loses almost all its leaves after flowering.

Seed collection was conducted at two different visits a month apart as only some seeds were ready to collect at the first visit (brown/dark in color) but most were not mature (green color). Seeds were collected for seed banking from 32 mother plants (maternal lines) at this site, but only 23 contained seed. During the second seed collection, the site was significantly flooded after a rain storm created a small seasonal pond; almost all tagged and bagged plants were underwater. Some seed bags and tags slated for collection were missing due to the flooding and perhaps herbivory.