Jump to content
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT LOGGING IN ×
  • WELCOME GUEST

    It looks as if you are viewing PalmTalk as an unregistered Guest.

    Please consider registering so as to take better advantage of our vast knowledge base and friendly community.  By registering you will gain access to many features - among them are our powerful Search feature, the ability to Private Message other Users, and be able to post and/or answer questions from all over the world. It is completely free, no “catches,” and you will have complete control over how you wish to use this site.

    PalmTalk is sponsored by the International Palm Society. - an organization dedicated to learning everything about and enjoying palm trees (and their companion plants) while conserving endangered palm species and habitat worldwide. Please take the time to know us all better and register.

    guest Renda04.jpg

Red Mangroves in Texas


Xenon

Recommended Posts

I have read that article and actually worked for/with the author several years after he published the article. I have since been down to the area and found red mangrove naturally colonizing. I have even read that there are a few plants now in the Corpus area but have not found one yet. Incredibly there are even some buttonwood and white mangroves on Padre Island now. The buttonwood seems to be reproducing. The white mangrove does not.

  • Upvote 1

Clay

South Padre Island, Zone 10b until the next vortex.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hopefully we won't have another arctic blast anytime soon..do you have any pics of buttonwood/white mangrove in deep south Texas? Would love to see them..

:) Jonathan

Jonathan

Katy, TX (Zone 9a)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jonathan,

Here are some photos I have taken over the years of the mangroves on South Padre Island and at the Boca Chica (mouth of the Rio Grande).

I first noticed red mangrove at boca chica around 2005. Sometime in 2008 I found out that both buttonwood and white mangrove had been reported on Padre Island just south of the Mansfield jetty in 1990 I believe. Apparently the buttonwood and white mangrove became established after a hurricane hit the area. Red mangrove may have arrived similarly, but it has been reported sporadicly since the 1800's.

Something interesting to note is that all of these plants survived the snowfall that occurred 2-3 years ago, even near the beach in South Texas. I did notice some burn on the plants during the spring following that event, but did not find any dead plants.

I have not been able to check how they faired this past winter, but I assume they survived with possibly some damage since reported lows at the beach did not go below 32F and that was just for 1 night.

Enjoy....

post-201-097076600 1288214271_thumb.jpg

post-201-037918200 1288214320_thumb.jpg

post-201-094747500 1288214332_thumb.jpg

post-201-035418000 1288214343_thumb.jpg

post-201-065046900 1288214357_thumb.jpg

post-201-072418600 1288214367_thumb.jpg

  • Upvote 1

Clay

South Padre Island, Zone 10b until the next vortex.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the pics...:drool::yay:

I found a few coconuts on South Padre which had moderate(younger palms) to no burn, one of them around 25 feet overall height was fruiting.

:) Jonathan

Edited by Xenon

Jonathan

Katy, TX (Zone 9a)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 months later...

Finally made it back down to South Padre Island and Boca Chica while travelling to a PSST meeting in Brownsville. Below are pix I took of the recently arrived mangrove species from points farther south. Sorry about the quality, only had the cell phone with me.

The buttonwood stand is located the farthest from a waterbody and appears to have suffered the most from this past years cold winter. Last winter I located several seedling/sapling buttonwood. It appears as though this past winters full day of sub 32F temps was too much for all but the largest in the stand.

White mangrove did better. Being on a high tide pool back in the dunes probably helped a little. One interesting note is that white mangrove does appear to be reproducing. In the original discovery of the plant on SPI, only 4 plants were located. As you can see, there are a few more now. These are/were across the pool from the plants I located last year. There was more water last year and I was unable to get close enough to get a good luck. I assumed they were black mangroves.

The red mangrove I have been going to see every so often for about 5 years at the mouth of the Rio Grande showed damage to only the top 6-12 inches of the uppermost branches. Lower branches are already starting to form propagules.

Black mangroves (no pix) in the area showed no damage at all.

post-201-027791800 1302823480_thumb.jpg

post-201-083081700 1302823501_thumb.jpg

post-201-025632000 1302823514_thumb.jpg

post-201-022421300 1302823534_thumb.jpg

post-201-085601400 1302823550_thumb.jpg

Clay

South Padre Island, Zone 10b until the next vortex.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Which species are you talking about when you say Red, Black and White mangroves?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Finally made it back down to South Padre Island and Boca Chica while travelling to a PSST meeting in Brownsville. Below are pix I took of the recently arrived mangrove species from points farther south. Sorry about the quality, only had the cell phone with me.

The buttonwood stand is located the farthest from a waterbody and appears to have suffered the most from this past years cold winter. Last winter I located several seedling/sapling buttonwood. It appears as though this past winters full day of sub 32F temps was too much for all but the largest in the stand.

White mangrove did better. Being on a high tide pool back in the dunes probably helped a little. One interesting note is that white mangrove does appear to be reproducing. In the original discovery of the plant on SPI, only 4 plants were located. As you can see, there are a few more now. These are/were across the pool from the plants I located last year. There was more water last year and I was unable to get close enough to get a good luck. I assumed they were black mangroves.

The red mangrove I have been going to see every so often for about 5 years at the mouth of the Rio Grande showed damage to only the top 6-12 inches of the uppermost branches. Lower branches are already starting to form propagules.

Black mangroves (no pix) in the area showed no damage at all.

Thanks for the update and pictures Clay! Since the more tropical mangroves seem to take these kind of winters with only moderate damage, maybe we'll start seeing a few natural stands in Texas. Off topic, but did you see any of the coconut palms on South Padre? Richard Travis said they were pushing spears a few weeks ago...

:) Jonathan

Jonathan

Katy, TX (Zone 9a)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jonathan,

I did not get a chance to look for coconut palms on SPI during my trip. It was a very quick trip. One day from Austin to Brownsville and back with a 30 mile (one way) jog up to the Mansfield jetty to see the buttonwood and white mangrove and a 20 mile (one way) jog to see the red mangrove at Boca Chica. All in all, I covered over 800 miles that day. Will not be doing that again for a while. I did see a coconut in Brownsville at the PSST meeting that had some damage but looked like it should recover.

Tropicbreeze - Sorry, I should have remembered that common names mess-up just about everyone.

Red Mangrove (Rhizophora mangle)

Black Mangrove (Avicennia germinans)

White Mangroves (Laguncularia racemosa)

Buttonwood (Conocarpus erectus)

Clay

South Padre Island, Zone 10b until the next vortex.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Locally we've got Avicennia integra, A. marina, and Rhizophora apiculata, R. lamarckii, R. stylosa. We don't get any Laguncularia nor Conocarpus.

I've had a fascination with mangroves since I was young. We're lucky here to have about 40 species of them, including the Nypa palm. It's a real "out-of-this-world" experience walking through a forest of Rhizophora stylosa, Spider Mangroves, because you have to walk on their stilt roots, above the mud and water (at low tide). It's just a whole new world.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Locally we've got Avicennia integra, A. marina, and Rhizophora apiculata, R. lamarckii, R. stylosa. We don't get any Laguncularia nor Conocarpus.

I've had a fascination with mangroves since I was young. We're lucky here to have about 40 species of them, including the Nypa palm. It's a real "out-of-this-world" experience walking through a forest of Rhizophora stylosa, Spider Mangroves, because you have to walk on their stilt roots, above the mud and water (at low tide). It's just a whole new world.

I think the Red Mangroves in the U.S are different to ours.......ours such as R. stylosa (which is a dominant species in this area) probably wouldn't take the level of cold that the species over there experience.

Andrew,
Airlie Beach, Whitsundays

Tropical Queensland

Link to comment
Share on other sites




  • Recently Browsing

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...