''Aureolaria virginica'', the downy yellow false foxglove or downy oak leach, is a

perennial In horticulture, the term perennial ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the year") is used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. It has thus been defined as a plant that lives more than 2 years. The term is also ...

forb A forb or phorb is a herbaceous flowering plant that is not a graminoid (grass, sedge, or rush). The term is used in botany and in vegetation ecology especially in relation to grasslands and understory. Typically, these are eudicots without woo ...

native Native may refer to: People * '' Jus sanguinis'', nationality by blood * '' Jus soli'', nationality by location of birth * Indigenous peoples, peoples with a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory ** Nat ...

to the eastern United States and Canada, USDA, NRCS. 2014. The PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov). National Plant Data Team, Greensboro, NC 27401-4901 USA. which produces yellow flowers in summer.

Description

''Aureolaria virginica'' is 50 to 150 centimeters tall and covered in fine downy hairs. The leaves are ovate to lanceolate, 6 to 15 centimeters long and 1.5 to 4.5 centimeters wide. The lower leaves sometimes have lobes or teeth. The flowers are borne on 1 to 3 millimeter long pedicles. The flowers have five 3.5 to 4.5 centimeters long petals fused into a corolla tube, and are smooth on the outside. The fruit is a 1 to 1.5 centimeter long dry ovoid capsule that splits open when ripe.

Distribution and habitat

''Aureolaria virginica'' is widely distributed in the eastern United States, although local distribution may be spotty. It has been recorded in Alabama, Connecticut, Washington, D.C., Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Vermont, and West Virginia. It has also been recorded in the Canadian province of Ontario. ''Aureolaria virginica'' is listed as threatened in the state of New Hampshire. In

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

, it grows in dry oak dominated forests. The presence of this species is dependent on appropriate

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

, and it may be eliminated from an area by development, changes in land use, or competition with

invasive species An invasive species is an introduced species that harms its new environment. Invasive species adversely affect habitats and bioregions, causing ecological, environmental, and/or economic damage. The term can also be used for native spec ...

Ecology

Like other members of the genus

Aureolaria ''Aureolaria'', with the common name false foxgloves, is a genus of 8 species, native to North America. ''Aureolaria'' plants are hemiparasitic, which is a character that in part describes the family Orobanchaceae. Until recently the genus was ...

, this species is

hemiparasitic A parasitic plant is a plant that derives some or all of its nutritional requirements from another living plant. They make up about 1% of angiosperms and are found in almost every biome. All parasitic plants develop a specialized organ called the ...

on oaks. It may be limited to

Quercus alba ''Quercus alba'', the white oak, is one of the preeminent hardwoods of eastern and central North America. It is a long-lived oak, native to eastern and central North America and found from Minnesota, Ontario, Quebec, and southern Maine south as ...

as a host. It also possesses chlorophyll and performs

photosynthesis Photosynthesis ( ) is a system of biological processes by which photosynthetic organisms, such as most plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, convert light energy, typically from sunlight, into the chemical energy necessary to fuel their metabo ...

Taxonomy

This species is a member of the genus

, which was formerly placed in the family

Scrophulariaceae The Scrophulariaceae are a family of flowering plants, commonly known as the figwort family. The plants are annual and perennial herbs, as well as shrubs. Flowers have bilateral (zygomorphic) or rarely radial (actinomorphic) symmetry. The Scr ...

, but has more recently been placed in the family

Orobanchaceae Orobanchaceae, the broomrapes, is a family (biology), family of mostly parasitic plants of the order (biology), order Lamiales, with about 90 genus, genera and more than 2000 species. Many of these genera (e.g., ''Pedicularis'', ''Rhinanthus'', ...

, in keeping with the findings of the

Angiosperm Phylogeny Group The Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG) is an informal international group of systematic botanists who collaborate to establish a consensus on the taxonomy of flowering plants (angiosperms) that reflects new knowledge about plant relationships disc ...

. The species now known as Aureolaria virginica was first described by

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

in 1753, who named it ''Rhinanthus virginicus''. The same year he was also the first to describe the species now known as ''Aureolaria flava'', which he named ''Gerardia flava''. In the 19th century, botanists renamed both species, which were now understood to belong to the same genus, several times, resulting in numerous synonyms. In the early 20th century Francis W. Pennell discovered that the downy species known at that time as ''Dasystoma flava'' actually matched the original description of Linnaeus' ''Rhinanthus virginicus'', and the smooth species known then as ''Dasystoma virginica'' actually matched the original description of Linnaeus' ''Gerardia flava''. Pennell realized that an error had been made by 19th century botanists such as Caspar Wistar Eddy and

Frederick Traugott Pursh Frederick Traugott Pursh (or Friedrich Traugott Pursch) (February 4, 1774 – July 11, 1820) was a German people, German–United States, American botanist. Born in Großenhain, in the Electorate of Saxony, under the name Friedrich Traugott Pursh, ...

, and so in keeping with botanical naming conventions, he restored the specific epithets of the

basionym In the scientific name of organisms, basionym or basyonym means the original name on which a new name is based; the author citation of the new name should include the authors of the basionym in parentheses. The term "basionym" is used in both botan ...

s to the original species to which they had applied. In 1935, Pennell published "The Scrophulariaceae of Eastern Temperate North America", which uses the current names of these species, ''Aureolaria virginica'', and ''Aureolaria flava'', and explains how confusion arose between the two. News about this correction spread quickly, and there have not been any more recent changes made to the names of these species. Unfortunately, some resources, particularly those functioning as aggregators of large quantities of information, including materials which may be out of date, have perpetuated the confusion, such as a

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...

botanical illustration of ''Dasystoma virginica'' from 1913 which was mislabeled as ''Aureolaria virginica'' on the USDA website, USDA, NRCS. 2014. The PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov). National Plant Data Team, Greensboro, NC 27401-4901 USA. and later uploaded to Wikipedia.

References

External links

USDA Plants Profile for ''Aureolaria virginica'' (downy yellow false foxglove)
{{Taxonbar, from=Q15344264 virginica Flora of the Northeastern United States Flora of the Southeastern United States Flora of Ontario Flora of Texas Parasitic plants Plants described in 1753 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Flora without expected TNC conservation status