woolly beachheather

not listed

N5 - Secure

S2 - Imperiled

Threatened

Woolly beachheather is a long-lived, low-growing, clone-forming shrub. It occurs in North America from Quebec to North Carolina west to Alberta and Minnesota. In the United States it is mostly restricted to the East Coast and the shores of the Great Lakes, but also occurs inland in Wisconsin and Minnesota. It is found on beaches and sand dunes, and in open, sandy, disturbed sites. It grows in the bowl-shaped depressions (blowouts) between the crests of the dunes, areas often devoid of other vegetation.

Woolly beachheather is rare and widely scattered in Minnesota, but it is locally abundant in areas where dunes are protected by management policies. It is very sensitive to trampling when growing on open sand. It is listed as a threatened species in Minnesota.

Woolly beachheather is a 1½″ to 8″ (4 to 20 cm) tall, mat-forming, evergreen, perennial shrub or subshrub. It sometimes forms clumps that are wider than high, up to 80″ (2 dm) wide or wider.

The stems may lay flat on the ground (prostrate) or rest on the ground with just their tips ascending (decumbent). They are slender, densely branched, up to 12″ (30 cm) long, and ⅛″ (3 mm) in diameter. They root where the nodes touch the ground, creating clone plants when separated from the parent. Branches are ascending and up to ⅝″ (1.5 cm) high. The ultimate divisions (branchlets) are greenish and densely hairy at first, becoming reddish-brown and hairless or almost hairless at maturity.

The leaves are alternate, evergreen, stalkless, closely appressed to the stem, and overlapping. The leaf blades are scale-like, mostly lance egg-shaped, pointed at the tip, 1⁄32″ to ⅛″ (1 to 3 mm) long, and 1⁄32″ to 1⁄32″ (0.3 to 0.6 mm) wide. The upper and lower surfaces are densely covered with gray woolly hairs. This is the feature that gives the species one part of its common name. The margins are untoothed.

The inflorescence is many small but showy yellow flowers, each rising singly on a very short stalk in an upper leaf axil.

Each flower is ¼″ to ⅜″ (6 to 10 mm) in diameter. There are 5 outer floral leaves (sepals), 5 petals, 8 to 20 stamens, and 1 style. The sepals (taken together, the calyx) are in two series. The two outer sepals are fused for half their length to an inner sepal. The calyx is ⅛″ to 3 ⁄16″ (3 to 5 mm) long and is densely covered with appressed hairs. The petals are yellow, oblong or narrowly egg-shaped, and ⅛″ to 3 ⁄16″ (3 to 5 mm) long. They fall off early, before the fruit is formed. The stamens are shorter than the style but are conspicuous above the petals. The style has a minute stigma at the tip.

The fruit is a smooth, brown, cylinder-shaped, ⅛″ (2.5 to 3.0 mm) long seed capsule with a single chamber. It remains enclosed by the persistent, erect, twisted, densely hairy sepals. It matures in July to early August.

1½″ to 8″ (4 to 20 cm)

Yellow

Dry. Beaches, sand dunes, and other open sandy sites. Full sun. Sand.

May to July

Sources

2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 24, 28, 29, 30.

Native

Rare and widely scattered but locally abundant.

A few authors recognize the variety sand golden-heather (Hudsonia tomentosa var. intermedia), but this name is misapplied to the hybrid with Hudsonia ericoides, and should be referred to as Hudsonia × spectabilis.

Hudsonia tomentosa

Landscape of the dunes and Hudsonia Tomentosa

Beach Heather flowers

Location: Kellogg Weaver Dunes SNA, Kellogg Weaver Unit

Hudsonia tomentosa

Location: Kellogg Weaver Dunes SNA, Weaver Dunes Unit