Next to the newly described taxa, the most significant discoveries of the present study were seven species never before reported from Alabama. Two of these are characteristic elements of the Ketona Glades, a Paronychia found in open, exposed situations, and a Solanum, usually found in partial shade. The remaining five species are either too uncommon on the glades to be considered characteristic, or are plants of habitats peripheral to Ketona Glades.
Astrolepis integerrima (Hook.) Benham & Windham
On June 1, 1992, after the rest of the members of the original canoeing expedition had returned home, Allison visited by car and foot two glades that had been spotted from the canoes but not visited then due to time constraints. The prime new find there was of a fern, at first mistaken, due to its brown, inrolled leaves in drought response, for Cheilanthes tomentosa Link. Upon bending closer to make a collection (A. 6695, UNA, VDB), it was clear that it was not that species at all, but seemingly a smaller version of a fern Allison had found in 1980, disjunct in Meriwether County, Georgia, Astrolepis sinuata (Lag.) Benham & Windham.
Upon returning home, Allison determined the fern to be Astrolepis integerrima (Hook.) Benham & Windham, better known at the time as Notholaena integerrima (Hook.) Hevly. This fern is disjunct on the order of 1000 km to the east of populations in Texas. On the Ketona Glades it is a scarce plant of scanty soil accumulations on rock ledges and boulders. We were only able to find two small populations of this species, but possibly other populations occur on one or more of the comparatively inaccessible rock bluffs along the Little Cahaba River.
Baptisia australis (L.) R. Br. ex Ait. f. var.
australis
During our several canoe trips on the Little Cahaba River in the summer of 1992, we noted a rather glabrous Baptisia on gravelly bars and islands and on the river banks. As it was past flowering before our first expedition, it could not be conclusively identified. The following spring, after he took part in a canoe trip sponsored by The Nature Conservancy of Alabama, Chris Oberholster reported to us (pers. comm. 1993) that the flowers were blue, confirming our expectation that the plant was Baptisia australis (L.) R. Br. ex Ait. f. var. australis, known from the adjoining states of Georgia and Tennessee, but not from Alabama. We obtained a voucher on June 13, 1993 (A. and S. 7724, AUA, UNA).
The two other varieties of Baptisia australis, var. minor (Lehm.) Fern., of states west of the Mississippi River, and var. aberrans (Larisey) M. Mendenhall, have a different habitat, namely dry, rocky, calcareous glades and bluffs, usually far from water. Although B. australis var. aberrans is often a component of calcareous glades and barrens in the adjoining states of Georgia and Tennessee, it is absent from the Ketona Glades and, so far as known, from Alabama as a whole.
Only in a very few cases where the Ketona Glade habitat extends all the way down to the right bank of the Little Cahaba River is Baptisia australis var. australis found in association with some of the characteristic elements of the glade flora. It is not, therefore, to be considered a species of the Ketona Glades, strictly speaking.
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