Other Rarities (Continued)

Davison and Schotz recently (1998) reported finding, on one of the large glades, two rare liverworts: Plagiochasma crenulatum Gott, new to the eastern United States, and Cheilolejeunea clausa (Nees & Mont.) Schust. It seems certain that still other botanical (and zoological?) rarities occur on these glades and await future detection.

Within about 100 meters of one or more Ketona Glades we recorded at least 16 other rarities, including Melanthium woodii (J. W. Robbins ex Wood) Bodkin, known previously in Alabama from a single population more than 240 km to the southeast, and three more former C2 species: Jamesianthus alabamensis Blake & Sherff, a species thought at the time to be endemic to a tiny area in Alabama more than 175 km to the northwest, and two plants named by the same botanist for their same discoverer, Sedum nevii Gray and Neviusia alabamensis Gray, the latter reported, at the time, from only 15 other populations. The remaining rarities found near one or more Ketona  Glades were Gentiana saponaria L., 

Hypericum nudiflorum Michx., Marshallia trinervia (Walt.) Trel., Melanthium latifolium Desr., Panax quinquefolius L., Parnassia grandifolia DC., Plantago cordata Lam., Phlox pulchra (Wherry) Wherry,

Rhapidophyllum hystrix (Pursh) H. Wendl. & Drude ex Drude, Schisandra glabra (Brickell) Rehder, Silene caroliniana Walt. ssp. wherryi (Small) Clausen, and Zanthoxylum americanum P. Mill.

Finally, Bibb County's trove of botanical rarities is by no means limited to plants found in the vicinity of Ketona Glades. Additional rarities that we encountered during our Bibb County explorations, but at distance from any of the Ketona Glades, included Carex impressinervia Bryson, Kral & Manhart, Cladrastis kentukea (Dum.-Cours.) Rudd, Corallorrhiza wisteriana Conrad, Croomia pauciflora (Nutt.) Torr., Cystopteris bulbifera (L.) Bernh., Euonymus atropurpureus Jacq., Hymenocallis coronaria (Le Conte) Kunth, Pachysandra procumbens Michx., Phacelia dubia (L.) Trel. var. dubia, and Trillium decumbens Harbison.

The ALNHP Tracking List is revised at intervals, and a few of the taxa named in these paragraphs have subsequently been removed from it, due at least in part to additional occurrences discovered in Bibb County.