Pilot Seed Collections and Preliminary Germination Trials of Keystone Sandhill Wildflowers

Longleaf pine sandhill ecosystems are among the most diverse habitats in North America, yet they remain critically endangered due to land-use change, habitat fragmentation, and other pressures. Restoration requires more than re-establishing pine structure—it depends on diverse herbaceous species that sustain pollinators and maintain ecosystem function. A persistent bottleneck is the limited availability of native seed and the lack of data on species-specific reproductive traits, which constrains restoration efforts.

This pilot project will leverage funding provided by the Florida Wildflower Foundation to our research partners at UF as part of the Florida Native Seed Partnership, augmenting the initiative entitled Vitalizing Florida's Native Seed Industry through Research, Extension, and Economic Development and expanding its scope to include additional high-centrality keystone sandhill wildflower species. Target species include Coastal Plain Chaffhead (Carphephorus corymbosus), summer farewell (Dalea pinnata), shortleaf blazing-star (Liatris tenuifolia), partridge pea (Chamaecrista fasciculata), and sweet goldenrod (Solidago odora) among others, identified through FWRI’s Keystone Wildflowers for Pollinator Habitat Conservation in Longleaf Pine Sandhills: Phase III of the Sandhill Plant-Pollinator Network Project.

Seeds collected by FWRI are being used by UF to evaluate propagation techniques and field-scale seed increase methods. FWRI staff are contributing to this pilot phase by collecting mature seed, assessing seed fill and viability, and conducting preliminary seedling emergence phenology studies. Together, these efforts will generate baseline data essential for informing species prioritization, propagation strategies, and future field-scale seed production.

Our participation in this pilot project will directly contribute to both research and applied goals. The data and seeds we provide will be critical for assessing seed availability and evaluating which species are most promising for transition into field-scale seed production. Outdoor germination and plug trials will provide a foundation for species prioritization and scalable seed increase strategies. The pilot project will also establish proof of concept that can support future collaborative proposals, more sophisticated ecological and genetic research, and the eventual development of seed crops capable of producing sufficient material for subsequent studies and restoration efforts.