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Nestronia umbellula Rafinesque
Indian Olive, Conjurer's Nut, Nestronia
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Sandalwood Family, SANTALACEAE
LEGAL STATUS:
State: THREATENED
Federal: None
SYNONYMY: None in current usage.
RANGE: Piedmont and Inner Coastal Plain from
Alabama to southern Virginia; disjunct on the Highland
Rim of central Tennessee. Recorded from 15 counties in
Georgia (see map).
ILLUSTRATION: (A) branch, with opposite leaves, and
single, axillary, female flowers, 0.3x; note pairs of
opposite buds where leaves have fallen; (B) leaf, 1x; (C)
female flower, two views, 8x. Source: Knox and Sharitz
(1990), drawn by Jean B. Coleman and used with
permission.
DESCRIPTION: Deciduous shrub. Nestronia is a small,
colonial shrub, 0.6-1.3 m tall. The young branches are
smooth, shiny, and dark purplish-green to chestnut brown.
The leaves are opposite, and when a twig is viewed
end-on the leaves appear in a single plane in two distinct,
opposite rows (2-ranked). The leaves are narrowly ovate
to elliptic, 3-6 cm long, about half as wide, pale green,
From: Patrick, Allison and Krakow (1995), Protected Plants of Georgia, Georgia Department of Natural Resources
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Nestronia umbellula Rafinesque
smooth, and pointed. Male and female flowers are
produced on different plants (dioecious). The female
flowers are solitary and the male flowers are in tight
clusters (umbels) of 3-11 flowers, both types arising from
the axils of the leaves. The petals on the male and female
flowers are absent; however, the 4-5 sepals are petal-like,
greenish-yellow to maroon, and less than 3 mm long. The
fruit is an olive-shaped drupe, 13-l5 mm in diameter, and
greenish-yellow, the sepal lobes persistent at the apex.
Flowering period: April to May; fruiting period: July.
Best search time: during growing season, since twigs and
leaves are diagnostic.
HABITAT: Found in dry, open, upland forests of mixed
hardwood and pine.
SPECIAL IDENTIFICATION FEATURES: Nestronia
grows in dense clumps resembling, but slightly taller than,
the common lowbush blueberry (Vaccinium pallidum,
including plants sometimes known as V. vacillans). The
2-ranked, opposite leaves with a pale green color on shiny,
purplish-green to chestnut brown twigs are diagnostic. The
leaves fall early and plants become hidden in fallen litter.
The buds are 1-3 mm long, about 1 mm wide, pointed, and
dark blackish-brown, covered with 3-4 pairs of bud scales.
The buds point outward, sometimes nearly at right angles
to the twig. Each pair of dark buds is conspicuous on the
naked winter twig. When a leaf is shed, it leaves a circular
leaf scar at the base of the bud for next year's leaf. In
contrast, lowbush blueberry has alternate, deep green
leaves on green to greenish-brown twigs; its buds are
greenish or reddish, and the subtending leaf scars on the
winter twigs are crescent-shaped.
opposite sex.
SELECTED REFERENCES
Dean, B. E. 1988. Trees and Shrubs of the Southeast. Third Edition,
Revised and Expanded. Birmingham Audubon Society Press,
Alabama. 264 pp.
Horn, D. D. and R. Kral. 1984. Nestronia umbellula Rafinesque
(Santalaceae), a new state record for Tennessee. Castanea
49:69-73.
Knox, J. N. and R. R. Sharitz. 1990. Endangered, threatened, and rare
vascular flora of the Savannah River site. Publication
SRO-NERP-20. Savannah River Site National Environmental
Research Park Program, Savannah River Ecology Laboratory,
Aiken, South Carolina. 147 pp.
Kral, R. 1983. A report on some rare, threatened, or endangered
forest-related vascular plants of the South. Technical Publication
R8-TP2. United States Forest Service, Atlanta, Georgia. 1305 pp.
Musselman, L. J. 1991. Nestronia. In: Terwilliger, K. (coordinator),
Virginia's Endangered Species. McDonald and Woodward
Publishing Company, Blacksburg, Virginia. 672 pp.
Radford, A. E., H. E. Ahles, and C. R. Bell. 1968. Manual of the
Vascular Flora of the Carolinas. University of North Carolina
Press, Chapel Hill. 1183 pp.
MANAGEMENT RECOMMENDATIONS: Hand
thinning of shading trees in its vicinity, if done carefully,
may be beneficial to this species.
REMARKS: William Bartram made the first recorded
observation of this species in 1773, in Georgia. It was
described in 1836. It is now known from about 16
locations in Georgia. The genus Nestronia consists of only
this species. Like many of its relatives in the Santalaceae
(e.g., buffalo nut), Nestronia is a hemiparasite. Such plants
contain chlorophyll and make their own food, but are
capable of parasitizing the roots of certain other plants
when the opportunity presents itself. Nestronia umbellula
is rare throughout its range and has sustained significant
habitat loss due to clearing of forest land. Many of the
remaining populations are of only a single sex, and thus
are mostly able to reproduce by asexual root-sprouting.
Dioecious species such as this one are especially
vulnerable to fragmentation of their habitat. As a result of
habitat loss, the distance between individuals—in the
genetic sense—increases, lessening the likelihood that a
pollinator will travel from an individual to one of the
From: Patrick, Allison and Krakow (1995), Protected Plants of Georgia, Georgia Department of Natural Resources