 |
|
| Photo
by Renee Brecht |
Britton and Brown. See
credits below. |
| Botanical name: |
Corema conradii (Torr.) Torr.
ex Loud |
| Common
name: |
Broom
crowberry
|
| Synonomy: |
n/a
|
| Group: |
Dicot |
| Family: |
Empetraceae |
| Growth
Type: |
Sub-shrub,
Shrub
|
| Duration: |
Perennial
|
| Plant
height: |
30 cm in New Jersey; taller in Nova
Scotia and Newfoundland
|
| Flower
color: |
purplish-red
|
| Flower
size: |
very tiny flowers are dioecious
(individual flowers are either male or
female, but only one sex is to be found on any one plant) |
| Flowering/fruiting time |
flowers March
to early April;
fruit is small drupe with 3-5 nutlets. |
| Habitat: |
coarse, gravelly, sandy, or rocky
soils and well drained soils
that have been subjected to many years of grazing or fire
|
| Range in
New Jersey: |
southern New Jersey Pine Barrens and
Pine Plains
|
| Heritage ranking if any: |
S1, Endangered, Listed Pinelands
|
| Distribution |
 |
| Misc.: |
Element
Stewardship Abstract lists as "disjunct populations usually along
the coast from Nova Scotia and Newfoundland to the New Jersey Pine
Barrens. Extant populations of C. conradii occur in Quebec,
Newfoundland,
Massachusetts, Maine, New York and New Jersey. "
The habitat of the Pine Plains was described by Redfield (1889):
"The region is a remarkable one, which cannot fail to impress every
visitor with a sense of loneliness and sterility...these so-called
"plains" are long undulating swells of sand, sometimes rising to a
height commanding extensive views in every direction over a desert of
sand so sterile that even the trees of Pinus rigida, which sparsely
clothe it, can attain only to the height of three or four feet.
No sign of human life is visible and one could readily imagine himself
in the midst of a vast wilderness." It is this habitat in which Corema conradii lives.
Corema,
"a broom", from the bushy aspect, and conradii,
after Solomon White Conrad, (1779-1831) who first discovered it.
May be confused with Hudsonia
ericoides, which is a yellow-flowered plant associate of C. conradii.
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