Alabama Leather Flower

Clematis socialis

Description

Alabama leather flower, Clematis socialis, forms into dense clones that grow from an underground rhizome. Clusters of erect stems reach 12 in (30 cm) in height. Leaves are variable from the base to the ends of the stems. Lowermost leaves are scalelike. Median leaves are simple, and upper leaves are composed of three to five leaflets. Solitary blue-violet, bell-shaped flowers bloom from April to May. The fruit is an aggregate of seedcases (achenes).

Alabama leather flower superficially resembles the more widespread Clematis crispa but can be distinguished by its erect stems, rhizomatous nature, solitary flowers, and lack of tendrils.

Habitat

Leather flower grows in soils of sticky, silty clay amid grass-sedge vegetation that is now found primarily along highway rights-of-way. Plants occasionally grow in the adjacent pine-hardwood bottoms.

Distribution

As of 1991, Alabama leather flower was found at three sites: one in St. Clair County, where 50 clones grow along a roadside right-of-way and in adjacent woodland; and two in Cherokee County, where about 15 clones live along a highway right-of-way, and where a population of a dozen plants was discovered on private land by a pair of Auburn University students in 1991. Highway maintenance crews have repeatedly disturbed two of the three populations by mowing and applying herbicides. As of 1991, only about 80 plants were known to exist in the wild.

Threats

Many plants at the St. Clair County site were destroyed by heavy vehicles that were brought in for logging and to clear the highway right-of-way. Erosion from adjacent roadside banks has covered many plants with a thick layer of silt that inhibits reproduction.

Conservation and Recovery

To protect the St. Clair County population and other rare plants from development, The Nature Conservancy established the Virgin's Bower Preserve. In 1988, the Conservancy and the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) signed a conservation agreement, whereby the Service assumed management of the site.

To protect the Cherokee County population, FWS personnel are consulting with state highway maintenance crews to find maintenance techniques that are compatible with the plant's existence. Priority has been placed on locating new populations of the plant, if they exist.

Searches for new populations are only a part of the Alabama leather flower recovery activities being conducted by researchers from Auburn University. Through the FWS's Auburn Cooperative Research Unit, researchers, including students, are involved in experiments to determine appropriate habitat management techniques and reproductive biology studies relating to the plant.

The discovery by Auburn University students of a new population in 1991 was the first population of the Alabama leather flower found in the wild since the species was listed in January 1986.

Horticulturists believe that the plant has excellent commercial nursery potential, and publicity regarding its rarity could generate a demand. However, because of its limited distribution and small population, any degree of collecting could result in extinction.

Contact

Regional Office of Endangered Species
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
1875 Century Blvd., Suite 200
Atlanta, Georgia 30345
http://southeast.fws.gov/

References

Kral, R. 1982. "A New Clematis from Northeastern Alabama." Rhodora 84:285-291.

Kral, R. 1983. "A Report on Some Rare, Threatened, or Endangered Forest-Related Vascular Plants of the South." Technical Publication R8-P2:400-412. USDA, Forest Service.