DISTRIBUTION AND OCCURRENCE
SPECIES: Persea borbonia | Redbay 



GENERAL DISTRIBUTION : 
Redbay grows on the Atlantic and Gulf coastal plains and in peninsular
Florida.  Its range extends from southern Deleware to southern Texas.
It also grows in the Bahamas [5,12,20].  It is cultivated in Hawaii
[46].


ECOSYSTEMS : 
   FRES12  Longleaf - slash pine
   FRES13  Loblolly - shortleaf pine
   FRES14  Oak - pine
   FRES16  Oak - gum - cypress
   FRES41  Wet grasslands


STATES : 
     AL  DE  FL  GA  HI  LA  MD  MS  NC  SC
     TX  VA


ADMINISTRATIVE UNITS : 
     ASIS  BICY  BITH  CAHA  CALO  COLO
     COSW  CUIS  EVER  FOCA  GUIS  JELA
     PAIS


BLM PHYSIOGRAPHIC REGIONS : 
NO-ENTRY


KUCHLER PLANT ASSOCIATIONS : 
   K080  Marl - everglades
   K091  Cypress savanna
   K092  Everglades
   K111  Oak - hickory - pine forest
   K112  Southern mixed forest
   K113  Southern floodplain forest
   K114  Pocosin


SAF COVER TYPES : 
    74  Cabbage palmetto
    81  Loblolly pine
    82  Loblolly pine - hardwood
    97  Atlantic white-cedar
    98  Pond pine
   100  Pondcypress
   101  Baldcypress
   102  Baldcypress - tupelo
   104  Sweetbay - swamp tupelo - redbay


SRM (RANGELAND) COVER TYPES : 
NO-ENTRY


HABITAT TYPES AND PLANT COMMUNITIES : 
Redbay is common in pocosins [10,30], forested wetlands [1], mixed
hardwood swamps [38,40], and Mississippi pitcher-plant (Sarrecenia spp.)
bogs [16].  In the drier Big Thicket area of eastern Texas, it sometimes
grows on upland longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) savannas [6,33] and
poorly drained sites where mesic vegetation form localized patches in a
more xeric landscape [41].  Redbay is a principal associate in the
Okefenokee Swamp [8], a dominant in Cumberland Island understories [10],
and common in the Great Dismal Swamp [44] and Big Cypress Swamp [11].
Red bay dominates many everglades tree islands [30,40] and cypress dome
[40] understories.  It is occasional in the understories of high
hammocks [2] but a major component in low hammocks.  When seen from the
air, southern Florida low hammocks have a characteristic
redbay-dominated tail which extends downstream in the direction of the
everglade's flow [15].  Some southern Florida tree islands are so
dominated by redbay, sweetbay (Magnolia virginiana), and loblolly-bay
(Gordonia lasianthus) that they are known as "bayheads" [23].

Overstory associates include red maple (Acer rubrum) [36], cabbage
palmetto (Sabel palmetto) [39], spruce pine (Pinus glabra) [25], slash
pine (P. elliottii) [17], loblolly pine (P. taeda) [3], sand pine (P.
clausa) [4], southern redcedar (Juniperus silicicola), loblolly-bay,
cassena (Ilex cassine), titi (Cyrilla racemiflora) [8], sweetbay, and
Atlantic white-cedar (Chamaecyparis thyoides) [24].

Understory associates include hurrahbush (Lyonia lucida), swamp
fetterbush (Leucothoe racemosa), sweetspire (Itea virginica), poor-man's
soap (Clethra alnifolia), coral greenbriar (Smilax Walteri), and wax
myrtle (Myrica cerifera) [8,23].

Wells [42] cited redbay as a dominant in his classification system of
Coastal Plain community types.

Related categories for Species: Persea borbonia | Redbay