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Plant Profile

Florida Panhandle Spider-lily (Hymenocallis punta-gordensis)

Photo Caption

Photo Credit: Jessica DeYoung

Global Rank: G1 - Critically Imperiled
Legal Status: N/A
Family: Liliaceae
State: FL
Nature Serve ID: 149605
Lifeform: Forb/herb
Date Inducted in National Collection: 11/27/2023

Description:

Where is Florida Panhandle Spider-lily (Hymenocallis punta-gordensis) located in the wild?

States & Provinces:

Florida Panhandle Spider-lily can be found in Florida

Which CPC Partners conserve Florida Panhandle Spider-lily (Hymenocallis punta-gordensis)?

Naples Botanical Garden

Not Sponsored

Conservation Actions

Assigned 11/27/23

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

Jessica DeYoung

11/21/2023

The Punta Gorda spider lily (Hymenocallis punta-gordensis) is an endemic species named after the City of Punta Gorda (Charlotte County, FL) where it occurs. Historically, not much is known about this plant despite being documented in two conservation lands. The Naples Botanical Garden (NBG) focused efforts on the Fred C. Babcock/ Cecil M. Wildlife Management Area, which is no minor undertaking considering it spans 80,000 acres. An even trickier hurdle: the little information this team had to go off is that it likes to occur in “disturbed pine flatwoods.”

This small 4-inch-tall spider lily is easiest to spot flowering in late June to early August, otherwise its thin and short leaves require much on-the-ground focus. One might be lucky enough to spot a seed pod just large enough to peek out of the surrounding grasses sometime between August to September. The NBG team managed to scout 11,000 acres during this timeframe to map over 84 occurrences, adding 11 unique genetic lines and 29 seeds to create an exceptional species living collection. We are learning more about this plant as we go, underscoring its illusive historical nature. It does indeed occur in “disturbed pine flatwoods” as the plant’s growing spots overlap several Florida Natural Areas Inventory (FNAI) defined habitats of “flatwoods,” but it most notably thrives along man-made berms and roadsides. Our newest insight learned: it appears this lily’s love of disturbance continues with immediate growth only a few weeks after a prescribed fire.