Florida Trees and Shrubs

Queens-delight - Stillingia sylvatica L.
Family - Euphorbiaceae

Native

Habitat - Pinelands, Sandhill, Scrub on sandy, acidic soils.

Description - Native herbaceous perennial to about 3 feet in height. Queensdelight has the form of small shrub with multiple stems, leaves are simple, 2-3 inches long with dentate margins, somewhat variable, elliptic to slightly oblanceolate with acute or acuminate apices, sometimes almost linear. Yellow flowers on an inflorescence, fruit is a three sided capsule. This plant can cause rashes on skin contact.

Beach-creeper - Ernodea littoralis
Family - Rubiaceae

Native

Habitat - Coastal areas - Dunes and scrub in central and south Florida.

Description - Low growing (less than 3 feet) sprawling native shrub, stems root where they make contact with the ground. Leaves are linear to lanceolate, opposite, shiny green to yellowish-green 1 inch to 1 1/2 inches long.

Flower - Small (1/2 inch) tubular flowers with 4 re-curving petals, may be white to pinkish or yellowish-white, produced year-round. Fruit is a single seeded, yellow berry.

Saltwort - Batis maritima
Family- Bataceae

Native

Subshrub. This native perennial colonizes areas that are occasionally inundated or directly in contact with brackish/salt water, or direct salt spray.

Able to sequester salt away in its leaf cells, Saltwort then sheds the leaf and the excess salt. This gives this plant the ability to grow in places where not many other plants can compete with it.

Saltwort can be found on brackish water river banks, beach dunes, in salt marshes and Mangrove swamps on both the east and west coast of Florida.

Habit of growth is as a sprawling shrub, rarely exceeding 2-3 feet in height. Stems root where they contact soil, older stems are woody, bright green leaves are linear, opposite, succulent with smooth margins. White to yellowish flowers are produced on small spikes in spring and summer. Rough textured, green, berry like fruit.

Surinam Cherry, Brazilian Cherry - Eugenia uniflora
Family - Myrtaceae

Invasive / Exotic

Description - Introduced to Florida with origins in S. America. (Surinam, Guyana) Considered a Category 1 invasive by the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council.

Growing as a shrub or small tree to 25 feet, this plant has been used extensively in Florida landscaping and has escaped in to the wild in most if not all South Florida Counties.

Surinam cherry has bright, copper colored new leaves that are a shiny bright green when mature are simple, arranged opposite, mostly ovate sometimes ovate-lanceolate with entire margins and may have acute or almost rounded apices. Grows with a open, sparsely branched form.

Flowers are on long stalks, small and white with 4 petals and many stamens and are produced from the leaf axils. Fruit is bright red or orange and looks like a small slightly flattened pumpkin.

Silky Sesban - Sesbania sericea
Family - Fabaceae

Invasive / Exotic

Habitat - Margins of fresh water marshes, ponds, lakes, river and creek banks, other moist sites.

Description - Introduced annual or perennial shrub, subshrub, height 6 feet. Leaves alternate, pinnately compound, leaflets have pointed tips.

Flower- Yellow to orange, 1-1/2 inch. Fruit is a long, thin seed pod,
6 in. or more.

Downy Rose Myrtle - Rhodomyrtus tomentosa
Family - Myrtaceae

Invasive / Exotic

Habitat - Pinelands & flatwoods, margins of lakes, marshes

Description - Invasive exotic perennial shrub, native to Asia. Grows from 6-12 feet tall. Introduced to Florida in the 1920s as an ornamental landscape plant. Rose myrtle produces 1-2 inch wide rose colored flowers in the spring from leaf axils. Leaves are simple, oppositely arranged, elliptic in shape with entire margins to about 3 inches long. Fruit is a purple globose berry 1/2 in. in diameter. Birds and mammals eat the fruit and disperse undigested seeds. Forms dense thickets, crowding out other plants.

Javanese Glorybower - Clerodendrum speciosissimum
Family - Lamiaceae

Invasive / Exotic

Description - Introduced, invasive - native to Indonesia, Java. Long used as landscape plant in Florida where it escapes from cultivation. Perennial shrub, 5-12 feet tall with large "fuzzy"cordate leaves up to 12 inches long. Produces clusters of red-orange flowers from spring through fall. Fruit is a 4 lobed fleshy dark blue to black berry, dispersed by birds. Spreads by suckering from its roots.

Turk's Turban - Clerodendrum indicum L.
Family - Lamiaceae

Invasive / Exotic

Habitat - Ruderal

Native to the Malay Archipelago. Semi-woody perennial shrub or annual in colder regions. Long, hollow stems are mostly unbranched, 6-9 feet long. Leaves are 4 - 6 inches long, arranged in whorls, elliptic in shape with entire, wavy margins. Numerous white flowers on large inflorescence from late summer into the fall.

Climbing Cassia, Christmas Cassia - Senna pendula var.glabrata
Family - Fabaceae

Invasive / Exotic

Habitat - Ruderal, Coastal Strand, Hammocks

Description - Category 1 invasive plant. Sprawling shrub to 13 feet tall, leaves alternate, pinnately compound with 3 -6 pairs of leaflets. Leaflets are oblong, up to 1 1/2 inches long with largest at tip. Flowers are yellow to greenish-yellow to 1 1/2 inches or slightly more across with curved stamens, produced on racemes near tips of branch in late fall to early winter. Fruit is a brown smooth pod to 5 inches or more long containing numerous seeds.

Schefflera, Umbrella tree - Schefflera actinophylla
Family - Araliaceae

Invasive / Exotic

Habitat - Coastal strand, Flatwoods, Hammocks, Scrub

Description - Introduced category 1 invasive species to 40 feet tall with single or multiple greenish trunks. Leaves are palmately compound with 7-16 oblanceolate leaflets which are alternately arranged & shiny green on long petioles (leaf stems). Schefflera has red flowers in summer and fall that are on large inflorescence at the stem tips. Produces large numbers of seeds which are then spread by birds. Seedlings can sometimes be seen growing in the "boots" of our native Sabal palm fronds.