BOTANICAL AND ECOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS
SPECIES: Lyonia lucida | Fetterbush 



GENERAL BOTANICAL CHARACTERISTICS : 
Fetterbush is a slow-growing, common, showy, evergreen shrub.  It varies
in height from 8 inches (20 cm) to 13 feet (4 m).  Large shrubs have
robust, branchy bases with crowns that are as broad as the height of the
plant.

Leaves are simple, alternate, and leathery.  They are borne on green
twigs which are flecked with dark, loose, deciduous scales.  The small,
pink flowers are borne on fascicles.  The fruit is a capsule containing
amber-brown, wedge-shaped seeds.

Fetterbush has extensive, interconnected rhizomes which sprout and form
dense clonal thickets [3,9,14,21].


RAUNKIAER LIFE FORM : 
   Phanerophyte


REGENERATION PROCESSES : 
The primary mode of fetterbush regeneration is vegetative:  Fetterbush
sprouts from rhizomes.  In nutrient-poor environments, it devotes its
energy stores to vegetative growth instead of sexual reproduction and
does not flower [31].  Information on seedling establishment and growth
is lacking.


SITE CHARACTERISTICS : 
Fetterbush occurs on sites where flooding is common [14].  Typically,
these sites flood during the spring and dry out during the fall.  Water
tables fall well below the soil surface for the better part of the
growing season.  Seasonal flooding eliminates upland competitors, and
summer dessication eliminates more hydric competitors [14].  

Fetterbush commonly grows on soils that are strongly to extremely
acidic, poorly drained, peaty, and organic (Histisols) [19,27].  It may
grow on the accumulated mats of peat and root fibers that collect around
the bases of cypress trees in cypress swamps [24].


SUCCESSIONAL STATUS : 
Facultative Seral Species

Fetterbush is a mid-seral species.  It follows the establishment of
deciduous shrubs after disturbance in southern swamps. [8,15,25,29].
Although an understory species, it does well in full sunlight [8] and is
one of several shrubs that prospers in lightly or infrequently burned
pine flatwoods [5].
  


SEASONAL DEVELOPMENT : 
Fetterbush has been reported to flower from April to June [9], from
February to April [4], or beginning in January [29].  Leaf production
begins in June and continues through September.  Most leaves are lost in
the November of their second year [31].

Related categories for Species: Lyonia lucida | Fetterbush