Image of Bridges and Orzell’s Figure 1 courtesy of Systematics of the Unifoliate Floridian Lupinus Clade (January 2024)

“The reclassification of these plants was a welcomed surprise,” said Mark Kateli, president of the Florida Native Plant Society and Cuplet Fern chapter. “We’d noticed a lot of variation among plants being identified as L. diffusus . Some had larger flowers, some had different hues in their inflorescences and some had different leaf spacing. I rationalized the differences were because the plants were responding to the growing conditions in different habitats.”

A Case for Speciation

Members of the unifoliate Florida clade of Lupinus largely grow on inland sand ridges, coastal sand ridges and uplands in the central peninsula. The ridges and uplands formed as Florida’s sea levels changed over time, and they’re generally fragmented and isolated.

Bridges and Orzell report that lupines growing in these geographically isolated areas developed characteristics so unique that they call for classification at the species level. Moreover, each of the species is endemic to its respective area.

The central peninsula of Florida in particular has “endemic-rich inland sand ridges,” they wrote.

L. aridorum’s Future

The survival of one of the newly classified species, L. aridorum , is of great concern. The plant has long been considered very rare, with just a few populations growing in Polk and Orange counties in central Florida. For years, a “persistent lack of consensus” on the plant’s classification made it difficult to assess its conservation status.

Bridges and Orzell report that L. aridorum ’s promotion in rank from a variety of a species to its own species calls for a change in status from “Species Globally Vulnerable” (G3T1) to “Globally Critically Imperiled” (G1) (status ranks  per NatureServe ). This change in classification could help draw federal and state resources to protect the species.

The study is also likely to raise interest in Florida lupines overall.

“We’re in a new era of native plant systematics and taxonomy,” Kateli said. “With technologies such as large-scale DNA sequencing, we’re able to learn more about the relationships between different native plants, a plant’s conservation status — and the unique place that Florida is in the world.”

Lupinus Gallery featuring observations by Cuplet Fern members

Lupinus villosus (lady lupine)

Alachua County

Photo by JC Krahling

Lupinus floridanus (Florida lupine)

Geneva Wilderness Area, Seminole County

Photos by Karen Guin

Using iNaturalist, author Edwin Bridges assigned the species names to the first two observations below with a caveat: The plants may be a Lupinus “intermediate” that contains both L. floridanus and L. ocalensis genes. That may be the case with the last observation as well.