Other Forestry and Forest Sciences Commons^™

Demography And Disease Of The Rare Shrub Buckleya Distichophylla (Santalaceae) In Northeastern Tennessee, William Seth Ratliff

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Piratebush (Buckleya distichophylla (Nutt.) Torr.) is a rare, hemiparasitic shrub with the only extant populations in western North Carolina, northeastern Tennessee, and southwestern Virginia. The preferred natural hosts of piratebush, Carolina and eastern hemlocks, have seen sharp declines over the last decade due to the invasive hemlock woolly adelgid. Virginia pine, another important host of piratebush, is also susceptible to disease, specifically Cronartium appalachianum, a rust fungus for which piratebush is the secondary host. This study described and analyzed current demographic parameters of three Tennessee piratebush populations. Additionally, spatial patterns of disease and demographic characters were analyzed. These …