Hexastylis rollinsiae B.R. Keener & Todia

Rollins’ Wild Ginger

Herb

Perennial

Vascular

Rollins’ Wild Ginger is a native evergreen herbaceous perennial in the Birthwort family (Aristolochiaceae). First described in 2021 this Alabama endemic is currently known from a few small sites along a single creek drainage in Baldwin County. Rollins’ Wild Ginger occurs on shaded sandy slopes along small acidic streams, often occurring beneath or near Florida Anise Tree (Illicium floridanum J. Ellis). It is a perennial with a short rhizome and long stolons, often forming large patches. Roots are thick and cord-like. The leaves are sometimes crowded near the apex of the rhizome, but can be widely spaced along the stolons. Leaves are petiolate, triangular to cordate in outline, glabrous, with entire margins. The leaves are thick and leathery in texture and has a spicy odor when crushed. The leaves are dark green in color, often mottled with patches of silvery green. Flowers are solitary on erect to ascending peduncles. The flowers are held above the leaf litter and are shorter than the leaves. The peduncles are usually recurved just below the flower so that the flower nods and the opening face the soil. The large flowers are composed of leathery sepals united for most of their length into a tubular portion with 3 rather large spreading triangular lobes. The flowers have an outward flare to the tube to about the middle and then a gradual constriction above the middle to the spreading lobes. They are greenish to yellowish brown flecked and streaked with purplish brown on the exterior, and have a dark purple-brown band on the interior above a yellow-green basal area. The flower has 12 stamens and a round stigma. The fruit is a berry-like capsule enclosed by the dried calyx.—A. Diamond.

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Native Endemic

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