Matelea alabamensis (Vail) Woodson

Alabama Milkvine; Alabama Spinypod

Vine

Perennial

Vascular

Alabama Milkvine is a native herbaceous perennial vine in the Dogbane family (Apocynaceae). It is found in southeastern Alabama. Alabama Milkvine occurs in hardwood or mixed pine-hardwood forests, on ravine slopes, and above steepheads. It is a perennial, herbaceous, twining vine up to 6 feet in length. The stems are green in color and pubescent. Leaves are opposite, petiolate, ovate to elliptic in outline, cordate at the base, pubescent, and entire. Both stems and leaves emit a milky white latex when injured. Flowers are produced in racemes or panicles in the axils of the leaves. The calyx is 5-lobed and green in color. The corolla is rotate with 5 triangular spreading lobes. The corolla is yellowish in color and marked with a network of conspicuous green veins. The dark yellow corona at the center of the flower forms a ring surrounding the column. Five white anther flaps create a star pattern in the center of the flower. The fruit is a spiny green follicle. The seed are flattened disc-shape with a tuft of long white hairs. Alabama Milkvine is listed as an S1 species in Alabama (typically 5 or fewer occurrences, very few remaining individuals, or some factor of its biology making it especially vulnerable in the state), and globally as an G2 species (imperiled globally because of rarity or very vulnerable to extinction throughout its range because of other factors).—A. Diamond.

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Native S1 (State Rank) G2 (Global Rank)

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