Introduction
With the rise of the Internet, books on cultivated plants
may be less needed than in earlier times. The Internet is a
goldmine of plant information. Horticultural web sites have
sprouted like mushrooms, some better than others. Comparison of
a 10-minute Internet effort with the entry in any landscaping
manual confirms the value of the Internet. This manual has a
companion Internet site at www.plantbook.org.
So why bother compiling yet another paper manual? A "manual" is
still valuable. One reason is nomenclature. Perhaps the biggest
problem with Internet-based plant data is with the varied use of
plant names. Most plants go by multiple English and botanical
names. The present effort brings such information together. We
list important synonymy (multiple names in use) for many
species.
A second reason for not relying 100% the Internet is
localization. The plant world is big, broad, and diverse. The
way a species behaves in Florida differs from that in Hawaii. If
you are interested in, say, orchids, there are some 30,000
species of them, and that count does not include hybrids, grexes,
cultivars, and other human-made named "kinds." You can hardly
"get your mind around" this diversity, but the world is narrower
on a local scale. The present Manual filters the information
down to South Florida.
A third reason for a manual is convenience. Not everyone carries
around a wireless laptop.
Does South Florida need yet another reference on cultivated
plants? Yes. Despite the large number of books on Florida
cultivated plants, nothing covers all the bases. Most provide a
menu of attractive plant choices for home gardeners but have
gaps that we are striving to fill insofar as possible. Gaps in
existing resources are:
1. Breadth of coverage. The number of species and cultivars
grown in South Florida is enormous, well over 1000. Total
coverage in any reference is impossible, although the quarterly
Plant
Finder from Betrocks Information Systems in Hollywood,
Florida comes close to comprising a checklist of landscaping
plants offered at wholesale commercial sources. This is our
jumping-off point for deciding on species to include, although
many older landscaping plants and native species not in the
Plant Finder are included in the Manual. By the
same publisher,
Betrock’s Reference Guide to Florida Landscape Plants, by Timothy Broschat and Alan Meerow is a 1991
(reprinted) database listing cultural attributes for numerous
Florida plants.
We aim to account for the vast majority of significant landscaping
species cultivated in South Florida, not giving much attention
to the endlessly hybridized, cultivar-dominated specialty
groups, such as Orchids, Bromeliads, Crotons, Heliconias, and
Begonias. Each of these groups demands (and has) entire books
devoted to them individually.
2. Botanical and nomenclatural. accuracy. Dealing professionally with any given plant group reveals
centuries of interpretations and re-interpretations of
classification and nomenclature by taxonomists. The more a
person learns about a plant group, the more complex this
historical taxonomic web becomes. Virtually any well known
species has accumulated a long list of names variably applied
to (and/or excluded from) that species, depending on differing
ideas about its borders, membership, and geographic range; and
depending on the vagaries of changing nomenclatural rules.
Species are concepts, and they differ in the eyes of different
beholders. There is no possibility of any book ever getting all
this 100% right, because there is no absolute "right." Many
readers may benefit from a reminder that the classification of
families, genera, species, and varieties is the domain of
botanical taxonomists. Taxonomists seldom concern themselves
with cultivars, which are trivial from a classification
standpoint. Cultivars are unregulated, unscientific, often
impossible to identify definitively and often nothing more than
color variants or marketing devices.
The present effort is written attentively to the underlying
taxonomic botany. Yet uncritical adherence to every new
taxonomic interpretation in the spirit of "they have changed the
name of this plant" is as simplistic as ignoring the march of
progress. We believe the best approach is a case-by-case
handling of taxonomic-nomenclatural matters. We cite sources for
deviations from common usage and list important synonyms (the
alternate names for a plant). Often "either/or" disagreements
about plant names are oversimplifications. In some cases we have
consulted taxonomists specializing in certain plant groups.
These persons are mentioned below.
Although there is no single final authority on the interpretive
subjective side of plant classification, there is such authority
when it comes to the forms, formats, spellings, and objective
aspects of nomenclature. This authority is the
International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, revised approximately every four
years by an International Botanical Congress. The "Code" settles such questions as to what categories can be used in classifying
plants, how they must be formatted, spelling principles, the
nomenclatural consequences of subdividing and merging groups,
and in special (but not all!) circumstances which name to adopt
when there are competing names. The Code sets the spelling for
almost all family names and many generic names (such as Buddleja
as opposed to Buddleia).
3.
Authority and sources of information.
The accumulation of information by many
persons in many places over many years is what it is all about.
Authors should not write only from limited personal experience,
when a better assessment comes by melding personal experience
with previous literature, inquiries to experts, and the
Internet. This is all standard in academic writing, backed up
with citations.
Seeking consensus in horticultural writings is
an interesting and eye-opening experience. When consulting
multiple sources for the same point of information, authorities
often disagree wildly, which is healthy and expected, given that
background variables differ. Agreement among authorities is more
common and sometimes a little worrisome when TOO congruent,
forming the illusion of consensus, just as gossip can become
falsely self-confirming when it has spread far and wide from a
single common source. We cannot overcome this hazard completely,
but users of this manual will see the sources of the information
we present, freshened with our own experience and direct expert
opinion.
4.
Attention to native species and invasive exotics. Oddly, most of the
existing books on Florida gardening often tend to sort
themselves out across a border:
native species vs. exotic landscaping species. Several
landscaping books ignore the rich (and commercially available)
menu of native species adapted to our soils and climate. A
separate set of books fetures native plants for landscaping. The
present manual has two premises on the subject of indigenous
plants: 1) Native species are highly desirable for South Florida
landscaping. 2)
Selecting the best plants for a landscaping project is not
usually a simple natives vs. exotics proposition. It is a matter
of selecting the most appropriate, non-invasive
selections, native or not, and the manual is written
accordingly.
We deplore the long-standing sin in Florida
horticulture of introducing non-native species without adequate
attention to the possibility of invading Florida’s natural
areas. With the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council as our primary
guide, we have flagged species with this tendency, and we have
given the FEPPC Categories. Category I is severe; Category II
less so.
Further, just what constitutes being “native”?
Is a species found naturally only in the Keys “native”
for Palm Beach County?
What about a rare species occurring wild only in a few
scattered localities?
Is a species from the nearby Bahamas more native to West
Palm Beach than one brought from the distant Florida Panhandle?
Is a species brought to Florida by ancient indigenous
peoples native, or one brought by a recent hurricane, or
suddenly able to live in Florida due to Global Warming?
What about human-derived variants (cultivars) of
indigenous species?
Thus "native" comes in degrees, and sometimes is not fully
known.
5.
Plant identification and distinctions. Very few plant manuals
provide the information necessary to distinguish similar
species, or to understand the size and diversity of many plant
groups. This is usually accomplished by use of identification
keys, such as those in Bailey’s
Manual of Cultivated
Plants. Because the world is filled with visually similar
species, and any given group of plants is usually bewilderingly
diverse and complex when seen in broad perspective, a manual
without an identification key is nearly worthless for
identification purposes. For example, South Florida gardeners
generally apply the term “Ficus” to one species---Ficus
benjamina. But,
in fact, there are some 800
Ficus species in the
world, with about 15 species cultivated in South Florida.
Distinguishing among related species is central to understanding
the cultivated flora of South Florida. We include identification
keys to all species.
6.
Inclusion of invasive species.
This manual is not a list of suggested species.
For any given situation, individual species fall variably
along a spectrum running from ideal to unsuitable.
And, of course, some species are essentially always
unwelcome, most prominently the invasive exotics.
Yet invasive exotics are common in landscaping and thus
are included because this is an information manual, and
information on all species is useful.
------------------------
Thanks:
Several experts have lent a hand.
The product would be far worse if not for the generous
help of: Drs.
Christiane and William Anderson (Malpighiaceae), Dr. Paul Berry
(Clusiaceae), Marx Broszio (Bamboos), Dr. Thomas Daniel (Acanthaceae)l,
and Dr. Peter Goldblatt (Iridaceae).
Funding for publication came from the
Stanley Smith Horticultural Trust.
The book would have been impossible without that support.
My son Curtis Rogers designed the beautiful cover.
Student contributors to the second edition are Ryan Agnew,
Kristi Coale, Joshua Knight, Wendy Mazuk, Sandra Popp,
and Marty Strenges.
Jae Eun Kim generously contributed extensive time and
technical expertise in helping to prepare the second edition.
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