Plant Spotlight

PLANT SPOTLIGHT Thalictrum cooleyi Ahles Cooley’s meadowrue Groundcover

Buttercup family — Ranunculaceaee

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Map showing distribution of Cooley's meadowrue, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Cooley’s meadowrue. Photo by James Henderson, Golden Delight Honey, Bugwood.org.

Description A rare perennial, dioecious, and rhizomatous herb. Rarity is owed to the conjoined factors of limited genetic diversity, pollen/seed production, and wind dispersal success of its short seed life.

Height: 3-6 ft, erect in sun but often leaning in shade.

Flowering: A dioecious species, Cooley’s meadowrue has separate male and female flowers. Female plants have green sepals and males have white-yellow lanceolate sepals, both sexes with an absence of petals. Purple or white stamens radiate out into an inconspicuous globular flower with yellow pollen tips from June-September.

Distribution Extant populations limited to intermittent wet-pine savanna drainages and ecotone clearings in documented counties of North Carolina (Brunswick, Columbus, New Hanover, Onslow, and Pender), Georgia (Worth and Doughtery, though these populations have uncertain taxonomy), and Florida (Walton). Conservation The wet savanna and bog habitats where the meadowrue dwells face pressure from poaching, fire suppression, and development associated with high-impact silviculture and agriculture. Remnant seed banks depend on cold stratification and fire management with one to five-year fire return intervals. Cooley's meadowrue is critically imperiled and federally listed as endangered.

References Radford, A.E., H.E. Ahles and C.R. Bell. 1968. Manual of the

Vascular Flora of the Carolinas. University of North

Carolina Press, Chapel Hill N.C. NatureServe. 2022. NatureServe Explorer [web application].

NatureServe, Arlington, Virginia. (explorer.natureserve.org, Accessed: June 16, 2022). Cooley's Meadowrue. 2022. U.S. Fish & Wildfire Service (n.d.). FWS.gov. Retrieved June 16, 2022, from https://www.fws.gov/species/cooleys-meadowrue-thalictrum-cooleyi