General Landscape Uses: Accent or specimen shrub along the coast.

Description: Medium to large shrub or rarely a small tree with a conical crown. Trunks short, bearing many erect to ascending slender branches. Bark brown to dark gray, shaggy, stipping off to show light yellow inner bark. Leaves fine-textured, thick, fleshy, hairy on both sides, about 1-1 1/2 inches long.

Dimensions: Typically 6-10 feet in height. About as broad as tall or broader.

Growth Rate: Moderate.

Range: Monroe County Keys north along the coasts to Brevard, Hillsborough and Pinellas counties; West Indies, Mexico, Central America, South America and the Old World tropics. For a digitized image of Elbert Little’s Florida range map, visit the Exploring Florida website.

Habitats: Coastal thickets.

Soils: Moist, well-drained sandy or limestone soils, usually without humusy top layer but with persistant leaf litter.

Nutritional Requirements: Low; it grows in nutrient poor soils.

Salt Water Tolerance: Moderate; tolerates brackish water or occasional inundation by salt water.

Salt Wind Tolerance: Frontline; grows in direct salt wind but away from constant salt spray.

Drought Tolerance: High; does not require any supplemental water once established.

Light Requirements: Full sun.

Flower Color: Yellow.

Flower Characteristics: Semi-showy, about 1/4″ wide.

Flowering Season: All year.

Fruit: Inconspicuous reddish-brown dry carpel. All year.

Wildlife and Ecology: Larval host plant for mallow scrub-hairstreak (Strymon istapa) and martial scrub-hairstreak (Strymon martialis) butterflies. Nectar plant for great southern white (Ascia monuste), julia (Dryas iulia), martial scrub-hairsteak, Miami blue (Cyclargus thomasi bethunebakeri), obscure skipper (Panoquina panoquinoides) and other butterflies.

Horticultural Notes: Can be grown from seed.

References: Hammer 2004, Nelson 2003