Apalachicola River - Rare Plants

Natural communities within the Apalachicola River WEA are home to a number of rare plants. Pictured is white-birds-in-a-nest with its distinct showy white flowers that bloom from May to mid-July. Listed as endangered by Florida and threatened by the federal government, white-birds-in-a-nest(1) is endemic to wet to mesic flatwoods in the Florida panhandle. Other rare plants in or adjacent to the Apalachicola River WEA include West's flax(2), a member of the mint family with pretty, pale yellow flowers that bloom from May through July; Carolina grass-of-parnassus (3), a perennial herb that produces a solitary white, veined flower in November, and Florida skullcap(4), an odorless mint endemic to the Apalachicola River lowlands with inch-long blue-purple flowers that bloom from April through May.