Trees and Plants Along the Anne Kolb Nature Trail
&
Ethnobotanical Uses
PINELAND PLANTS
1. Saw Palmetto
Serenoa repens
A palm with a low, prostrate trunk more or less buried or lying parallel to the ground that
forms dense clumps. Sometimes the trunks may be upright, having the dimensions of a
small, erect tree, especially in moist, shady hammocks. The fronds are fan shaped and may
be silvery blue or green in color. The frond petioles are armed with sharp curved spines
reminiscent of a saw blade. The fragrant flowers are creamy white. The fruit is yellowish or
orange, turning black at maturity.
Wildlife – These flowers are a nectar source for many butterflies. The fruits are important
foods for a variety of animals including foxes, raccoons, opossums, and even gopher
tortoises.
The fruits have a long folk history as an aphrodisiac and have been used for centuries in
treating conditions of the prostate. Native American Indians used the saw palmetto fruits as
a subsistence food in the fall. The bases of new leaf stalks were also cooked or eaten raw.
The Seminoles used the plant for fiber, baskets, brooms, fans, and ropes. Further uses
included fish drags, fire/dance fans, and dolls. American tribes use the fruit as a diuretic, a
sedative, an anti-inflammatory, and for asthma, colds, coughs, chronic bronchitis, diarrhea,
and migraines. Modern-day development of a purified extract from the berries greatly
improves the symptoms of an enlarged prostate. Florida is the biggest source and producer
of saw palmetto products. With about 2,000 tons harvested from South Florida and
exported to Europe each year, the fruit crop estimate is $50 million a year in the state.
2. Beautyberry
Callicarpa americana
Beautyberry is a multibranched deciduous shrub. The leaves are opposite and simple, and
both sides are covered with star-shaped hairs. The young stems also have star-shaped hairs.
The leaves are aromatic when bruised. The small flowers are pink and followed by densely
clustered, magenta-colored berries along the branch.
Wildlife – A favorite food of the mockingbird.
Favored among the eastern Indian tribes as a ceremonial plant and as a tea used in sweat
bath rituals. Also popular as a Southern folk remedy: The berries, roots, and leaves are
steeped in a tea to treat dropsy, skin disorders, stomach disorders, and colic.
3. South Florida Slash Pine
Pinus elliottii var. densa
This tree can grow up to 100 feet. The leaves are needlelike and are typically bound
together in fascicles of two, occasionally three, and extend brushlike from the tip of the
branch. This tree typically grows in fire-dependent communities.
Wildlife – Squirrels use the trees like jungle gyms and scold each other as noisily as
children. These trees do not sucker from the base, and the branches are sparse, so the forest
is open and wiry, just right for cardinals and jays, crows, hawks, owls, doves,
woodpeckers, and sapsuckers.
The exceedingly hard heartwood has always been a favorite in Southern folks’ indigenous
architecture, resulting in large-scale logging, with harvesting continuing into the 21st
century. Commercial processes include use in the paper and chemical industries
(turpentine and gum resins). Resins are obtained by slashing the pine bark like a “cat face”
and harvesting the compound. The United States is the world’s largest producer of
turpentine, with much of it coming from Florida. There are also medical applications as a
counter-irritant applied topically. Limited references imply the eating of inner bark for
food during famine times.
4. Gallberry
Ilex glabra
Gallberry is an erect, evergreen shrub with creeping rootstock. The leaves are dark green
above and pale green below with scattered reddish glands. Leaves are often toothed or
notched. Petioles have a powdery pubescence. The tiny white flowers have six petals and
are in dense clusters. The fruit is black and shiny.
Wildlife – Flowers are rich in nectar, which yields high-quality honey.
As the common name “gallberry” implies, the leaves and fruits are bitter. The whole plant
is emetic. Gallberry is an important commercial source of honey in Florida. The bush is
used as a yard broom in the Low Country.
5. Wax Myrtle
Myrica cerifera
An evergreen shrub that sends up multiple trunks. The leaves are alternate and simple and
typically toothed toward the apices. The leaves are aromatic when crushed. The flowers are
borne in catkins at the leaf axils. The fruit is small but conspicuous, round, waxy, and blue.
Wildlife – Larval host plant of the red-banded hairstreak, Calycopis cecrops
Winter flocks of swallows spiral down to feed on the fruits. This behavior seems unusual
because these are normally insect-eating birds.
Waxy berry coating is removed by boiling. As four pounds yields one pound of wax, other
plant relatives are more commonly used for bayberry candles. Seminoles fermented leaves
into a tonic for headaches, fevers, and stomach aches. A mixture of wood ashes was placed
on tongues of newly married couples to strengthen their marriages. Introduced to European
settlers in the 1700s, the wax was an ingredient in surgeon’s soap, shaving lather, and
sealing wax. Wax myrtle is planted around homes to keep fleas out and placed in closets to
keep cockroaches away. Crushed leaves rubbed on your skin reportedly repel mosquitoes.
HAMMOCK PLANTS (including maritime)
6. Live Oak
Quercus virginiana
A massive, evergreen tree with rough grayish, often deeply furrowed bark. Leaves are
simple, alternate, leathery, and dark shiny green above. The leaves underneath are pale
gray and hairy. The cups on this acorn are shallow, enclosing about one-quarter to one-half
inch of the nut. This is a long-lived tree. According to legend, a live oak tree grows for 200
years, lives for 200 years, and dies for 200 years.
Wildlife – Larval host to the gray hairstreak, Strymon melinus, tropical checked skipper,
Pyrgus oileus, and white “M” hairstreak, Parrhasius m-album, varieties of butterfly. Quail,
woodpeckers, and blue jays feed on the acorns.
Live oaks are of the “white” oak group, having acorns less bitter than “red” oaks. Native
Americans, settlers, and explorers alike harvested the acorns for food, but southeastern
U.S. tribes used them as animal feed. Also the wood (still prized) is often utilized as fuel, as
well as in tool making. Uses include as a building material (lumber, timbers, etc), as a
component of mortar and caulks, as a source of lye, and for tanning hides. During the War
of 1812, the warship U.S.S. Constitution defeated five British warships and captured
numerous merchant ships and earned her the nickname of “Old Ironsides.” Her success
was in part due to her inner frame construction of live oak.
7. Gumbo Limbo
Bursera simaruba
A deciduous tree losing all its leaves in early spring before new leaves appear. The
resinous, reddish bark peels away in thin flakes and contributes to the common nickname
“tourist tree.” The leaves are alternate, glossy green, and pinnately compound, with five to
nine leaflets. Flowers are inconspicuous, with creamy white or greenish petals in
many-flowered panicles. The fruits are dark red, containing one or two hard-shell seeds.
Wildlife – Host to the dingy purplewing, Eunica motima, butterfly. The seed is an example
of what might be termed a “pebble-fruit,” ingested by certain seed-eating birds and utilized
not as food but as grinding stones in their crops in lieu of pebbles.
The tree has been used to make living fences. The aromatic resin reportedly was used to
make incense. It was also used in the treatment of gout and in the manufacture of varnish.
8. Short-Leafed Fig
Ficus citrifolia
An evergreen tree with smooth gray bark and white milky sap. The leaves are alternate,
entire, leathery, smooth, and dark green. The fruit turns from yellow to dark red on long
stalks.
Wildlife – It is the larval host of the ruddy daggerwing, Marpesia petreus, butterfly. Many
birds and animals feed on the figs.
The Seminoles ate the fruits and used its adventitious roots as cords. The latex is chewed
throughout the range of figs and used, at least by children, as a birdlime to catch birds.
9. Paradise Tree
Simarouba glauca
A tall, straight-boled tree with finely fissured bark. The leaves are pinnately compound,
dark, and shiny green above and gray below. The flowers are yellow to cream-colored,
with five sepals in terminal clusters. The fruit turns from red to purple to black at maturity.
Wildlife – The seeds are attractive to a variety of birds, and much of the fruit is consumed
before ripening.
This tree has been cultivated commercially as a source of oil.
10. White Stopper
Eugenia axillaris
This is an evergreen shrub or small tree, with smooth grayish-white bark with small, white,
fragrant flowers. The leaves are opposite, glossy, and simple. The green fruit turns red to
black upon maturity. When there is a little breeze, the air near these plants is often
perfumed with the odor of skunk, which emanates from the leaves.
Wildlife – Fruits are eaten by birds and probably by mammals, thus spreading the seeds.
The Seminoles historically used the stems for bows. A decoction of white stopper is used to
treat colds and for “building up men’s energy and body.” The wood is hard and rot resistant
and is used in fences and local carpentry.
11. Coral Bean
Erythrina herbacea
This is a deciduous shrub that has red tubular flowers and trifoliate, three-lobed, alternate
leaves. The pod holds poisonous, bright-scarlet seeds.
Wildlife – It attracts hummingbirds and is the larval host plant of the Florida purplewing,
Eunica tatila, butterfly.
Also known as the “cry baby tree” because the nectar is so abundant the tree “weeps.”
Young leaves and flowers are reportedly edible when cooked. Seeds are toxic to man and
animals but are often strung like beads. The juice from the stem is used to treat scorpion
stings. Seminole Indians used leaf decoctions as a remedy for dog ailments.
12. Blolly
Guapira discolor
An evergreen shrub or small bushy tree with smooth, gray bark. The thin, light-green
leaves have translucent mid-veins and thickened, wavy margins. The small flowers are
tubular-shaped with a greenish-yellow or purplish calyx and no petals. The fruit is hot pink
if growing in full sun and may be red when growing in the shade.
Wildlife – Various birds feed on the fruits.
The specific epithet refers to the two surfaces of the leaves being unlike in color. The
berries are edible and the wood is useful.
13. Spanish Stopper
Eugenia foetida
An evergreen shrub or small tree that has light-brown bark scarred by old leaf bases. The
leaves are aromatic, opposite, oval or elliptic in shape, and have fine black dots on the
underside. The small, fragrant, white flowers appear in stalkless clusters along the
branches. The globular fruit changes from red to black as it ripens.
Wildlife – The fruit is a favorite food of many native birds.
Spanish stopper was historically used in baths.
14. Silver Palm
Coccothrinax argentata
A medium-size palm whose deeply divided leaves are fan-shaped, showy green above, and
silvery gray beneath. The unarmed leaf stalks may be three feet long and flexible. The
flowers are very small, ivory-white, and fragrant. The fruit is red, turning purple or black
when ripe.
As with most palms, the heart is edible, as are the fruits. Oil from the seeds is used in Haiti
to renew the sense of smell. Leaves are used to make brooms. The stems are hard and are
used to make pilings in saltwater for fences. Leaves are used to thatch houses and to make
baskets, ropes, twines, and hats.
15. Sea Grape
Coccoloba uvifera
An evergreen sprawling shrub or tree with leathery, almost round leaves with red veins.
The flowers are fragrant, inconspicuous, and yellowish-green to white on slender racemes.
The fruit turns from red to purple as it ripens one grape at a time.
Wildlife – The ripe fruit falling on the ground is attractive to bees. Birds feed on the fruit.
The ripe fruit is edible raw. It makes excellent jelly and is also used to flavor meat.
Bark from this tree has been used as a febrifuge. The red wood has been used for fuel and in
cabinet making.
16. Lancewood
Ocotea coriacea
This medium-size evergreen tree has a narrow crown. The bark is reddish with round
deposits of cork. The leaves are alternate and aromatic. The fragrant, creamy-white flowers
are in clusters. The fruit is a dark-blue or black, nearly spherical drupe with a red or yellow
cup.
Wildlife – Birds love the fruits, especially veeries and thrushes. The canopy, because it is
dense, makes a good nesting area for mockingbirds.
The Seminole warriors used the wood for bows. The wood has light-brown sapwood, and
the dark-brown heartwood has been used in carpentry, in cabinetwork, for poles, and to
make charcoal. Reported to be a honey plant.
17. Jamaica Capper
Capparis cynophallophora
An evergreen shrub or small tree with reddish-brown bark, which has glossy, leathery,
oval-shaped leaves with a notched tip. The flowers are very showy, with purple filaments
and yellow anthers extending beyond the petals. The fruit is a slender cylindrical pod.
Wildlife – The flowers are fragrant at night and attract many moths. Birds eat the fruits.
Large plants were used as wood for construction, tools, and fuel. An infusion or decoction
of the leaves or roots is used as a diuretic and emmenagogue. Red fruits have been used to
treat venereal disease.
18. Crabwood
Gymnanthes lucida
An evergreen shrub or small tree with alternate, leathery, elliptical leaves that are
sometimes toothed near the apex. Flowers are developed almost a year before they
function. The flowers are red. The flowering branches resemble small catkins.
These shrubs flower only once every five years.
Wildlife – It is a larval host plant for the dingy purplewing, Eunica monima, butterfly. The
adult food supply comes from tree sap and rotting fruit.
A favorite for fancy wood turning because of its high contrast between the heart and
sapwood. The wood has been used for fence posts, canes, handles, backs of brushes,
mirrors, and ornamental articles.
19. Black Ironwood
Krugiodendron ferreum
An evergreen shrub or small tree that has gray bark with woody ridges. The leaves are
simple, glossy, and deep green, and persist for two to three years. The flowers are small,
yellowish-green with no corollas on auxiliary clusters. The fruit is glossy black with a thin
skin and a single hard stone. The wood, which lacks growth rings, is extremely hard (hence
the common name). It is the densest of all woods native to South Florida.
Wildlife – The small flowers are visited by a variety of bees and wasps.
These trees are used for posts, crossties, and canes.
20. Red Mulberry
Morus rubra
A small, deciduous tree that has alternate, heart-shaped leaves. The leaves are glabrous
above with toothed edges and are softly hairy underneath. Milk latex is present but not
abundant. Trees tend to be small and multiple-stemmed with roughened bark. The wood
has distinct annual rings and is ring-porous. Juvenile leaves may be deeply lobed. The
flowers are minute spikes. Fruit is red, ripening to dark purple.
Wildlife – Kingbirds, great crested flycatchers, titmice, crows, and summer tanagers are
attracted to this tree.
The red mulberry was considered a staple for the Indians. The Seminoles made bows from
the branches and used the fruit, leaves, and stems for dye. A decoction of the roots was
used to treat urinary problems. The sap was used to cure ringworm.
21. Pigeon Grape
Coccoloba diversifolia
A densely foliated evergreen tree with light-gray bark tinged with brown. The leaves are
leathery, alternate, bright green above and paler below, with clasping petioles and
diversified in shape. The flowers are inconspicuous without petals, a creamy white,
cup-shaped calyx on two-to-three-inch-long spikes. The fruits are dark purple,
thin-fleshed, round or pear-shaped.
Wildlife – Many birds and animals utilize the fruit.
An important food of the Mikasukis, or Miccosukees. The Seminoles dry and rehydrate the
fruit to diminish the astringency.
LOW HAMMOCK PLANTS
22. Sugarberry
Celtis laevigata
A deciduous tree that has corky outgrowths on the bark. The leaves are alternate, simple,
and lanceolate. The flowers are tiny, in small elongated clusters in the leaf axils. The fruit is
a fleshy, rounded drupe, turning from orange to red on maturity.
Wildlife – The fruit is eaten by wildlife, especially birds (towhees, flickers, thrashers, and
robins). The warty outgrowths are often aggravated by the work of yellow-bellied
sapsuckers. This tree is the larval host of the tawny emperor, Asterocampa clyton, and the
hackberry emperor, Asterocampa celtis, butterflies.
Historic Indian camps are readily identified by the presence of sugarberry. The Seminoles
ate the fruits. People all across the southern United States used this plant for food or
medicine.
23. Cabbage Palm
Sabal palmetto
The palm is covered with jagged “boots” (old leaf bases) until fairly old. Leaves are
blue-green, fan-shaped, slightly folded with arched midrib and slender drooping segments,
with many threadlike fibers. Flowers are small and fragrant in branched clusters. Fruit is
glossy brown with a tough skin. This palm is the Florida state tree.
Wildlife – Many birds utilize the fruit for food. Many bees, flies, and wasps visit the
flowers and pollinate them. Literally hundreds of species and thousands of individuals are
fed and served by this palm, according to a study made some years ago.
The Indians reduced the dried fruits to a coarse meal that they made into bread. The
terminal bud, or “cabbage,” is a delicacy raw or cooked. Leaves were used for thatching
traditional Seminole homes. The leaves were also used to make potato drying mats, fish
drags, and rope. Aborigines used the fruits for food.
24. Laurel Oak
Quercus laurifolia
A large, monoecious, deciduous tree that has dark grayish bark and most often a buttressed
base. Leaves are alternate, simple, and entire. The acorn has a flattened base, with the cup
covering about one-quarter inch of the nut. This is a short-lived oak (75 years on average).
Wildlife – Larval host of the Horace duskywing, Erynnis horatius, and white “M”
hairstreak, Parrhasius m-album, butterflies.
Native Americans ate the acorns; they also used their oil for cooking and flavoring other
foods such as hominy.
WETLAND PLANTS
25. Pond Apple
Annona glabra
A small to medium-size evergreen tree with gray bark and a buttressed base. The leaves are
alternate, simple, entire, shiny green, and leathery. The tree sometimes grows in clumps.
The flowers are distinctive and arise from a triangular bud. The petals vary from white to
cream color with a purple splotch inside. The petals are thick, resembling dried apple
slices. The fruit is green and egg- or heart-shaped, maturing to yellow with many flat, black
seeds.
Wildlife – Larval host of the giant sphinx moth, Cocytius antaeus. The fruit is an important
wildlife food.
CAUTION: The seeds are reportedly poisonous. Early Indians and settlers used the fruit as a
food and the seed as a fish poison. The soft wood has been used in rafts, as floats on fishing
lines, and as corks for bottles. Seeds and leaves are insecticidal.
26. Leather Fern
Acrostichum danaeifolium
A large fern that may grow to eight feet tall, with the fronds alone three to six feet long. The
fronds are dark green and shiny. The fertile fronds are cinnamon-colored, resembling
suede leather underneath. The fern changes little during the year, but provides a continuous
green mass of foliage.
The Seminole use this fern as a febrifuge. The fern fronds are placed in hen nests to kill
lice.
27. Paurotis Palm
Acoelorraphe wrightii
A cluster-forming palm of many trunks. The leaves are fan-shaped and divided only to the
middle of the leaf. The leaf stems are thin, with orange-colored saw teeth on the edges. The
flowers are small and yellow-green, growing on a stalk coming from among the leaves and
extending beyond them. The fruit is globular in shape and orange-colored, turning black as
it ripens.
Leaves are used for thatch and rope. The fruits are edible.
28. Cocoplum
Chrysobalanus icaco
An evergreen shrub or small tree with leaves that are simple, alternate, leathery, and shiny
dark green. Flowers are small and greenish white. The plants whose new leaves are red
have white fruit that changes to purple when ripe. The shrubs whose new leaves are green
have green fruit turning to yellow with a pink blush when ripe.
Wildlife – Many animals, including foxes, raccoons, and probably birds, eat the fruits and
plant them with their droppings.
Indians considered this plant as a source of food, arrows, and medicine. The Seminoles
used this plant to treat gossips through a “cleansing ritual.” The seeds may be strung on
sticks and burned like candles. Leaves and fruits yield a black dye. In many areas, a tea of
the bark and roots is used to halt dysentery and as a general tonic.
29. Red Maple
Acer rubrum
The red maple is a deciduous tree with light bark. The leaves are opposite, simple, and
usually three-lobed. The tiny flowers are borne in fascicles and are red or pinkish without
petals and appear prior to the new leaves. The fruit is a pink or red samara, which kids refer
to as helicopters because of their whirling movement when falling to the ground. Fossil
leaves suggest that its range was even wider in recent geological time.
Wildlife – The flower secretes nectar, which might attract insects. The tree is one of the
larval hosts of the eastern tiger swallowtail, Papilio glaucus, butterfly.
The Seminoles used red maple to treat “ballgame sickness” (sores, back or leg pain, and
hemorrhoids). The inner bark was used to make bread.
30. Royal Palm
Roystonea regia
A stately palm with a grayish trunk and a conspicuous crown shaft subtending a cluster of
long, arching leaves. The leaves are pinnate, deep green, and borne along the rachis in four
distinct rows. The flowers are borne in a single inflorescence, whitish and ascending, with
numerous branches and flowers. The fruit is blue and round.
The terminal bud is edible. The root is made into a diuretic medicine, and some think it is
also good for diabetes. Fruits have been widely used as a swine food.
31. Bald Cypress
Taxodium distichum
A deciduous tree, with smooth gray bark and a buttress base. Leaves are needlelike,
typically spreading from their supporting shoots, thus featherlike in appearance, often
appearing like leaflets in a compound leaf. The fine, light-green leaves of the springtime
later turn dark green and then rusty red in autumn. The main trunks are surrounded by
cypress knees, which promote gaseous exchange between the atmosphere and the
subterranean root system, because they grow in a waterlogged, oxygen-deficient
environment.
Wildlife – Gray squirrels feed on the cones and various birds feed on the pollen.
Glades Indians used the wood for cups, bowls, and tubs. The Mikasukis, or Miccosukees,
used cypress to build houses, canoes, dance posts, coffin logs, medicine bowls, spoons,
food paddles, to make arrowheads, drums, ox yokes and bows, heddles, mortars and
pestles, ball poles, spoon ball sticks, and dolls, and in tanning.
GLOSSARY
Apices – tips of the leaves
Birdlime – an adhesive substance used in trapping birds
Deciduous – leaf drop after growing season
Decoction – a method of extraction by boiling
Dioecious – having male and female reproductive organs on separate plants
Diuretic – a compound that causes increased urination
Emmenagogue – herbs that encourage menstruation
Ethnobotanical – was probably first coined as a term in 1895 by Harshberger, and describes
the study of the interaction between people, plants, and culture. There are many
components to ethnobotany, including food, fiber, medicine, shelter, fishing and hunting,
religion, mythology, magic, and others. In this booklet, the interactions quoted are usually
the uses of the Seminoles and the Mikasukis, or Miccosukees.
Emetic – a substance that induces vomiting when administered orally
Infusion – steeping plants in water or oil
Monoecious – having male and female reproductive organs on the same plant
Staple – a food that is eaten regularly and in such quantities to constitute the dominant part
of the diet.
REFERENCES
Ginger M. Allen, Michael D. Bond, and Martin B Main
50 Common Plants Important in Florida’s Ethnobotanical History
EDIS – University of Florida Publication Cir# 1439
Dan F. Austin
A Field Guide to the Plants of South Florida’s Pine Rockland
A Pocket Guide to the Common Plants of Southern Florida’s Pine Flatwoods Community
Florida Ethnobotany
Coastal Dune Plants – The Common Plants of Southeast Florida’s Ocean-side Communities
Coastal Park Plant Guide – The Native Trees, Shrubs & Vines of Boca Raton’s Hammock
and Mangrove Parklands
Pine Rockland Plant Guide – A Field Guide to the Plants of South Florida’s Pine Rockland
Julia F. Morton
Folk Remedies of the Low Country
Wild Plants for Survival in South Florida
Eddie Nickens
Restoring Old Ironsides – The Frigate U.S.S. Constitution
(The CBS Interactive Business Network)
J. Paul Scurlock
Native Trees and Shrubs of the Florida Keys
Georgia Tasker
Wild Things – The Return of Native Plants