July 14, 2014 at 3:00 pm

Paxistima canbyi: Ohio’s Rarest Plant?

By Jeremy Held ’17
HTC Plant Biology Major

Hello all! My name is Jeremy Held and I will be a Sophomore this upcoming semester.

A small clump of Paxistima canbyi. Note: Our population has never been observed flowering.

For my summer internship, I chose the Edge of Appalachia Preserve in Adams County, Ohio. Perhaps the most exciting and vigorous thing I’ve done so far this summer is examining a population of Paxistima canbyi. Commonly known as cliffgreen or Canby’s mountain lover, this low-growing, evergreen species is found at only one other location in Ohio.

A gorgeous view of the Ohio Brush Creek Valley.

Besides counting the plants, a colleague and I had the goal of doing some habitat management on the site. We know from records that the plant used to be present in greater numbers here at he Edge of Appalachia Preserve. We also surmise that increased canopy cover may be responsible for the decline due to a high amount of young trees. Thus, we have removed the smaller trees and photographed some of the clumps to see how they respond in the coming years to more sunlight. The clumps correspond to a map we drew of the site.