Keywords

fire, cleistogamy, Clitoria fragrans

Abstract

The southeastern coastal plain of the United States is a center of endemism for plants in temperate North America and second only to California among the states. In the southeast, Florida has the largest number of these endemic plants. The largest number of these Florida endemics can be found in the fire maintained scrub and sandhill communities located on sandy ridges in Central Florida. One such endemic is Clitoria fragrans, a rare perennial herb. C. fragrans reproduces via a mixed mating system. It produces both open, chasmogamous flowers and closed, selfed, cleistogamous flowers. Little else is known about its biology. I monitored populations of C. fragrans from 2003-2005 on the Avon Park Air Force Range. I tracked plant density, finite rate of population increase, plant survivorship and reproduction relative to the time since fire and season of fire. I found that recently burned plots had a higher density of plants than those unburned for over 13 years. Unburned populations decreased in all years of the study. In all three years, the majority of flowers produced by Clitoria fragrans were cleistogamous. The production of chasmogamous flowers appears to be influenced by plant size and potentially fire. Unburned plots had less variation than recently burned plots for all independent variables.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2007

Semester

Fall

Advisor

Stout, I. Jack

Degree

Master of Science (M.S.)

College

College of Sciences

Department

Biology

Degree Program

Biology

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0001950

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0001950

Language

English

Release Date

December 2007

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Open Access)

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Included in

Biology Commons

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