Cinnamon Bark is one of the most beautiful small trees in South Florida. The bluish oval leaves are three inches long with a pungent cinnamon smell and flavor. The inner bark can be used as a cinnamon replacement, yet the outer bark is poisonous. Hold the leaf a foot or two away when crushing it for the smell or you may end up sneezing as the oils fill the air.
As a single tree, Cinnamon Bark is a bit sparse, yet when grown as triples or more it is full and dense. It takes a few years until the red flowers and red berries are produced, but your patience is rewarded with a fantastic mass of color. The clusters of pea sized berries will attract many birds and give the tree a holly like appearance.
Cinnamon Bark will usually grow to 16 feet or less, yet may reach thirty feet in the wilds where old trees are found. The soil should be rich and can have occasional short term saltwater flooding. Drought tolerance is excellent once established and it can be planted in the back of a coastal hammock where some salt air will reach it.
The natural range is from the coastal hammocks of South Dade County to Key West. It will tolerate a fair amount of cold and can easily be grown in Eastern Palm Beach County. Try building a coastal hammock hedge with Cinnamon Bark, Bitterbush, Wild Coffee, Marlberry, Myrsine, Bahama Wild Coffee, Bahama Strongbark, Myrtle of the River, Jamaica Caper, Indigo Berry and Simpson, Spanish, White and Redberry Stoppers. These are all upright and compact and won’t push each other out.
Christmas Berry is naturally found in moist to wet soil near salt water bays in the Florida Keys to South Carolina. The half inch, bright red berries, which can cause vomiting, ripen in winter and are used by many species of birds and other wildlife. These follow the lilac flowers that occur most of the year, yet abundantly in late summer.
Plants loaded with berries can be found in Cedar Key, which is west of Gainesville, Florida. I have not found ones so full of red berries anywhere else. These berries are shaped like little Tomatoes and tiny Red Peppers.
This makes a nice accent bush or mass, growing up to six feet tall, with one inch narrow leaves and thorns that prevent trespassers. The soil must be fertile with organic matter and moist or the plant will die out. Full sun is best.
If you are looking for an evergreen shrub with masses of red or orange berries, this is a great choice. It can be trimmed by hand to keep a nice compact shape or just let it grow in its natural weeping form.
A mixture of Christmas Berry, Sea Oxeye Daisy, Spartina Grasses, Sea Purslane, Bitter Panicum, Seashore Dropseed and other marsh plants will make a beautiful planting that will tolerate salt water flooding.
Please do not allow children to eat the colorful fruit.
The IFAS link below misstates that the fruit are six inches long; they are one half inch long.
Chapman’s Cassia is also known as Bahama Senna, and is a great attractor of several sulphur butterflies. These include the Cloudless Sulphur, Sleepy Orange Sulphur, Little Yellow, and Orange Barred Sulphur. The adults nectar on the yellow flowers while the caterpillars eat the leaves.
It grows to two and a half feet tall on average in full sun and likes well drained yet fertile and moist soil. Drought is tolerated yet water may need to be added if this continues.
Chapman’s Cassia is a long lived woody shrub found in the Miami Rocklands and, surprisingly, near the water’s edge in the Florida Keys. Stem borers and an insect that eats the flower buds may need treatment. Watch for scale insects on the stem which will kill the plant.
This plant makes a nice addition to a rock garden or a garden mimicking the Florida Keys’ environment. Lignum Vitae, Thatch Palms, Quailberry, Golden Creeper, Locust Berry, Firebush, Keys Porterweed, Sea Lavender, Bloodberry and Joewood make great combinations with this plant.
Chapman’s Cassia may occasionally need to be cut back, fertilized and watered to encourage dark green new growth. Otherwise, it may become rangy. Although it is not the prettiest plant to use, it is essential to have in a butterfly garden.
Cat’s claw is native to the Florida Keys and the coast of Southwest Florida. Cat’s claw can tolerate cold throughout Palm Beach County and possibly the coast of Martin County. This is a very drought tolerant legume or bean relative that needs no special care once established.
Cat’s claw can reach 15 or more feet tall. Mounds of honeysuckle scented white flowers occur in the spring which attract many pollinators. It also blooms in December. The curly seed pod has black seeds with a red aril attached. Birds eat this aril which is not poisonous to humans although the seed is. Due to the spines on the branches and trunk, this is not to be planted near walkways unless it is trained into an upright tree with a clean trunk to 10 feet.
The larva of the Cassius Blue and the Large Orange Sulphur butterflies feed on the young leaves. It is common for the sulphur to hover over this plant as she lays her eggs during the summer months.
Cat’s claw makes an interesting specimen or can be mixed with Blackbead, Chapman’s Cassia, Wild Plumbago, Wild Lime, and other larval food plants. Plant this along the back edge or center of the butterfly garden with other plants between it and where people walk.
Buttonbush is one of the most flood tolerant shrubs in North America. It can be found in swampy ground from southern Canada to the Florida Keys. It is not salt tolerant and must have moist to wet organic soil to thrive.
The foliage is deciduous, turning a bright red before falling in October. The foliage of Winged Sumac, Red Maple, Virginia Willow, Virginia Creeper and Firebush all turn red about the same time and will light up your yard for a brief time. The leafless stems of Buttonbush are interesting and may even make you feel cold on a warm Florida winter’s day.
The 3 quarter inch balls of tiny white flowers are fragrant and attract many insects including butterflies. The following ball of thistle sized seeds are eaten by various seed eating birds including ducks. This is a medium sized shrub that is usually below ten feet, but may reach over twenty feet. A yearly cutting back will keep it low and bushy.
Find or create a low, moist to wet area of the yard. Plant wetland trees and shrubs like Cypress, Buttonbush, Popash, Carolina Willow, Pond Apple and Virginia Willow. Then plant herbaceous ground covers like Pickerelweed, Thalia, American Crinum Lily, Arrow Arum, Florida Lily, Alligator Lily, Giant Leather Fern and various Sagittaria species.
Just outside the flood zone plant Red Maple, Sweet Bay, Swamp Bay, Florida Elm, Sweetgum, Hackberry, Wild Coffee, Firebush and other swamp species to create a portion of the property that celebrates the seasons. But be careful! The change of color, the sweet smell of rotting leaves and the starkness will bring back fond memories of fall, and even possible sadness, if you are from north of Central Florida.
Buccaneer Palm, which is also called Sargent’s Cherry Palm, was almost eaten to extinction when the hearts were collected for food years ago. It is only found wild on Long Key and Elliot Key although it is being reintroduced to other areas of its natural range and is fairly common in cultivation.
Moderate salt air and short periods of storm surge flooding are tolerated. Buccaneer Palm is very drought tolerant. Rich, dry soil and full sun are needed for best growth.
The silvery foliage and trunk and bright orange fruit make this an outstanding addition to the landscape. Buccaneer Palm does well in narrow spaces due to its slow growth and leaves that point upward and stay close to the plant.
We have planted ours over the septic drain field along with other key palms and Sea Lavender. These plants tolerate the layer of gravel and have not caused problems with drainage.
Buccaneer Palm or Sargent’s Cherry Palm belongs in the front yard where it will bring positive comments. A large mass of these palms is outstanding and mimics what can be found in nature. If you are a palm lover, try a mix of Buccaneer Palms with the native Thatch Palms, Lignum Vitae, Coontie, Beach Creeper, Joewood, Chapman’s Cassia and low wildflowers and groundcovers.
The cage in the back is actually a painted bunting feeder where the birds enter through one inch by two inch rectangles (rabbit hutch wire) to pick white millet off the surface. Larger birds and squirrels can’t get in.
Bloodberry or Butterfly Sage is found in lower Dade County and the Keys. This drought tolerant shrub is one of the best butterfly attractors for Palm Beach County and south and will last for many years.
Bloodberry is a member of the borage family and reaches a height and width of six feet on average in full sun. The leaves will burn if planted in a windy or seaside site. This is a very drought tolerant when established.
The small flowers are in a half inch cluster and have a sweet odor. These are followed by small, edible red berries that are eaten by birds as soon as they color up. Seedlings will appear around the yard from bird droppings and may need thinning. This is a great way to involve your neighbors in butterfly gardening, whether they want to or not.
Mix with Bauer Aster (Florida Keys Thoroughwort), Lantana involucrata (Wild Lantana), Firebush and Pineland Privet for a drought tolerant grouping that will really attract butterflies and birds. Key’s Porterweed makes a good groundcover in the front.
Amazingly, if Bloodberry is planted within a group of shrubs, it will climb like a vine to the top and then spread out to capture the sunlight.
Blolly has evergreen two inch oval leaves that are light green. It makes a beautiful specimen tree up to 25 feet tall, especially when full of clustered red berries in late summer. These are edible, see link below.
Birds love these and won’t leave the tree alone until the fruit are gone. The endangered, native, white crowned pigeon is attracted to fruiting trees in the Keys. The flowers are dioecious, or male on one tree and female on the other, so it is necessary to plant several near each other for the bees to pollinate the flowers and fruit to set.
A group of three to five planted two feet apart will make a nice multitrunked specimen tree. Leave one male and keep the fruiting females for maximum effect.
Blolly is tolerant of salt spray but not salt water. It grows naturally along the coast from the Keys to Brevard County. It even makes a great hedge when trimmed back once a year, yet please don’t sheer it into a box or there will be few fruit.
Soil should be deep and moderately fertile with organic matter. Blolly tends to root near the surface and may lean if exposed to too much wind or if planted in shallow soil.
Plant Blolly with other coastal trees like Gumbo Limbo, Black Ironwood, Crabwood, Spanish Stopper, Simpson Stopper, Jamaica Caper and use Wild Coffee, Snowberry, Coontie, Bahama Wild Coffee and Native Ferns as ground covers.
Black Torch, which is a member of the Gardenia family, has clusters of small fragrant flowers followed by green fruit that turns white and finally black before drying and falling. The local birds will eat these berries before that happens.
The fruit are sweet and bitter; I don’t recommend eating them as they most likely will cause a belly ache. The evergreen oval leaves are light green and around three inches long. They remind me of Azalea leaves.
Black Torch needs moderately moist soil with some organic matter and tolerates brackish water and moderate salt spray. It grows naturally in the Florida Keys near the ocean.
Black Torch does well along the coast and close to the intracoastal farther north to Martin County. The growth rate is around two feet a year and it forms a nice round shrub that is easy to keep between four and eight feet tall.
Plant this as a mass, or mix with other plants of the Keys like Jamaica Caper, Blackbead, Wild Coffee, Marlberry, Joewood, Lignum Vitae, Snowberry, Coontie, Cinnamon Bark and Myrsine.
To break up the texture, add the various Key Thatch Palms, Buccaneer Palm, Cinnecord and Pineland Acacia. Quailberry makes a natural groundcover along with Twinflower, Havana Scullcap and Pineland Snowberry.
Black Ironwood has the hardest wood in North America and will withstand strong winds. The rounded shape and average height of 15 feet, although it can grow to 30 feet, make this a great specimen tree. The small oval leaves are shiny and the trunk is up to 10 inches in diameter.
Black Ironwood occurs naturally along our coast, yet is protected by the front vegetation. Rich, dry soil is required and extra care to water and fertilize during establishment are needed.
The root system is fibrous and non invasive but brittle. It should be handled with care when planting. This tree is very drought tolerant when established.
The one third inch black berries, produced in late summer are well liked by birds and are sweet and edible for humans. They dry before falling, so are not messy.
Cold tolerance of Black Ironwood extends to Brevard County. Grow as a specimen with low ground covers to show it off. Try mixing with other coastal hammock species like Gumbo Limbo, Paradise Tree, Lancewood, the Stoppers, Inkwood, Crabwood or any of the other coastal species.
If a one inch diameter branch dies, cut it off and make an 18 inch dowel out of it. You can use this to start a fire by twisting the point into a dry softwood branch like Mahoe.
I make a small bow with a two foot length of willow branch and chord and twist it once around the dowel.
Just move the bow back and forth while holding the top in place with a piece of hardwood plate. OK, it does take a few minutes with dry grass next to the point to actually get a fire going.
