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Plant Profile

Wedge Spurge (Euphorbia deltoidea ssp. adhaerens)

The Keys wedge spurge (Euphorbia deltoidea ssp. serpyllum) is historically only known from pine rockland habitat on the island of Big Pine Key in the lower Florida Keys and it was federally listed as endangered in 2016. In 2019, in an effort to safeguard this species, Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden Conservation introduced seeds to the neighboring island of No Name Key, where recent pine rockland restoration efforts improved habitat for rare plant translocations of this species and others (Big Pine partridge pea, sand flax). In this photo one month after seed introduction, there are 2 seedlings of the Keys wedge spurge, one set of cotyledons with its seed coat still attached!

Photo Credit: Lydia Cuni

Global Rank: T1 - Critically Imperiled
Legal Status: N/A
Family: Euphorbiaceae
State: FL
Nature Serve ID: 156686
Lifeform: Forb/herb, Subshrub
Date Inducted in National Collection: 08/23/2022

Description:

Where is Wedge Spurge (Euphorbia deltoidea ssp. adhaerens) located in the wild?

States & Provinces:

Wedge Spurge can be found in Florida

Which CPC Partners conserve Wedge Spurge (Euphorbia deltoidea ssp. adhaerens)?

Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden

Not Sponsored

Conservation Actions

Assigned 11/22/22

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

Nicholas Matsumoto

09/18/2023

For 2023, Fairchild’s conservation team made several visits to Goulds Pineland Preserve to collect seeds of the Goulds wedge sandmat. Goulds Pineland Preserve is a nearly 40 acre Pine Rockland remnant managed by Miami-Dade County’s County’s Environmentally Endangered Lands Program and is one of the few sites known to support the Goulds wedge sandmat.

The team used tiny drawstring silk organza bags to carefully enclose the developing three-lobed sandmat capsules. After an initial day of bagging capsules, four collection trips from May to August were made. At each visit, newly identified capsules were bagged in preparation for collection. The delicate work didn’t end in the field, as the tiny capsules must be opened to reveal the seeds inside. These tiny football shaped seeds can range in color from red to gray to brown and often need to be examined under the microscope to separate them from other plant material and soil from the field. At the end of the collection efforts the team was able to collect 135 seeds from 37 different mother plants.

Sabine Wintergerst

11/22/2022

Goulds wedge sandmat is a tiny little plant whose historic range is limited to approximately 20 square miles of globally imperiled pine rockland habitat in Miami-Dade County. It is recently confirmed as present in only four conservation areas (and nowhere else). It is not abundant in any of them. Fairchild’s conservation team selected Camp Owaissa Bauer for their seed collecting efforts. This unique preserve, which is owned and managed by Miami-Dade County’s Environmentally Endangered Lands Program contains 64 acres of pine rockland. The Goulds wedge sandmat is found only in a small portion of the preserve (approximately 2 acres).

Collecting seeds of Goulds wedge sandmat was no easy feat and requires a delicate touch. Biologists used the smallest-sized organza drawstring bags available to cover tiny developing fruits near the end of the plants’ fragile branches. After several trips to harvest seeds and put out more bags, they were able to collect 198 seeds from 40 maternal lines.