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Froelichia floridana var. floridana
Plains Snakecotton
Cottonweed
Florida native
A common wildflower of sandhills, scrub, beach dunes, dry hammocks and disturbed sites throughout nearly all of Florida. The range of the floridana variety extends through the southeastern states as far north as Kentucky and Virginia and west of the Mississipppi River only into Louisiana and Texas, plus Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey. Variety campestris is also found in Texas, Tennessee and Kentucky and its range extends northeast into Ohio, north into Wisconsin, Minnesota and South Dakota, and west into New Mexico and Colorado.
This slender plant can reach 1m (~3 ft.) tall with pubescent stems often branching at the base. Opposite, but mostly basal leaves are entire and linear to 11.5cm (4-1/2 in.) long and woolly on the underside. The inflorescence is more than twice as long as broad and is made up of small petal-less flowers with cottony sepals. There are five stamens whose filaments are fused together into a tube (connate). The sepals are persistent enclosing the fruit, which is a utricle.
Froelichia floridana is a member of the Amaranthaceae - Amaranth family.
Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants (Institute for Systemic Botany) profile for this species
USDA Plant Profile for this species
Date record last modified: Jun 06, 2020
