In December, the Rare Plant Conservation Program collected seeds of Scrub blazing-star, Liatris ohlingerae, and preserved them in long-term storage. Scrub blazing-star is an endangered member of the Asteraceae family, and is found only in scrub and scrubby flatwood habitats on the Lake Wales Ridge in Polk and Highlands Counties. Each flower on the showy, pink flower head forms a fruit with a tuft of fine, white bristles (called a “pappus”), which acts like a parachute to disperse the seed on the wind. We collected seeds from a wild population in the Lake Wales Ridge State Forest by placing organza draw-string bags over flower heads after all flowers were pollinated, then leaving the bags secured on the plants until seed ripening was completed. Once the bags were collected from the field, the ripe seeds were carefully separated from the debris of dried flower parts, dirt, and stems. The seeds were counted, and kept separate by maternal line.

Each time a new set of seeds are collected like this, new information is gathered that can help us understand a species’ biology, what might be impacting populations in the wild, and how best to conserve it. During seed cleaning of Scrub blazing-star, several seeds showed signs of predation by insects – small holes were visible in the fruit. A tiny beetle was also observed in some of the seed bags, though not always the same bags as the damaged seeds. Photos of the insect were sent to entomologists at the state of Florida Division of Plant Industry, who quickly identified it not as a beetle, but as a common Orbatid mite. Orbatid mites are fungivores and can be beneficial, as they feed on detritus and help with nutrient cycling in the soil. They do not feed on living seeds, as they do not have the mouthparts to bore through a seed coat, so it was another insect, yet to be located and identified, that had been responsible for the seed predation we observed.

Fortunately, only very few seeds were insect damaged. The rest of the seeds were sorted as ‘intact’ or ‘empty,’ as members of the Asteraceae family are notorious for producing fruit without seeds inside. Germination trials, expected to run through January, were then set up on the intact seeds to determine natural viability and if there are differences in the germination rates among maternal lines.

This seed-collection effort provided valuable information on this species. We learned that a small level of seed predation is taking place in the wild, that an average of 16.76 seeds are produced per flowering head, and that only 35.97% of the seeds are intact. The germination trials will soon reveal the viability of intact seeds. Most important, because seeds of this species had not been present in any ex situ collection prior to these efforts, having seeds this species now safely preserved in cold storage will help prevent its extinction.