Gopher Apple

Description

Botanical Name:    Geobalanus oblongifolius

Common Name:    Gopher Apple

Description:     This is a low-growing, deciduous to evergreen perennial shrub that will attract those gorgeous gopher tortoises to your nativescaping! It matures to only .5 – 1 foot tall, which makes it a great groundcover for that dry area of your garden. It’s in the cocoplum family. Gopher apple will spread and form colonies by underground rhizomes. It helps to stabilize dry, sandy soils. It is fire adapted. Very drought tolerant after becoming established. It has a slow to moderate growth rate.

‘Gopher apple’s flowers are small, creamy white and born in erect, terminal cymes. Leaves are leathery, stiff and oblong with fine but obvious venation. They can grow up to 4 inches long and are alternately arranged. Fruits are white drupes with a rosy blush, ovoid to ellipsoid in shape, and about 1 inch long or longer.’ ~Florida Wildflower Foundation~

The fruits are eaten by small mammals and gopher tortoises (hence the name). Butterflies including buckeyes, rattlebox moths, wasps, ants and bees use the flowers.  Bees are the primary pollinators. Documented bees include  Colletes sp. A, Agaposternon splendens, Augochlorella aurata, Augochloropsis metallica, A. sumptuosa, Dialictus nyinphalis, Sphecodes heraclei, Megachile brevispseudobrevis, Epeoluszonatus and Apis inellifera (Deyrup et al. 2002)

Its native habitat is in scrub, scrubby flatwoods, sandhill, dry secondary woods, pine rocklands, and coastal dunes in limerock or sandy soils with slightly acidic pH. Grows in sun, part sun, or part shade.

Not salt tolerant of inundation by salty or brackish water. When doing the research on its salt spray/wind tolerance, it ranges from moderate to excellent tolerance.

This plant in 1-gallon containers is 3 – 8 inches tall.

Plant Lore:  Fruits are edible but the animals usually get them first. From what I’ve read, the fruit is nearly tasteless to humans. But the gopher tortoises love them!

Florida hardiness zones 8 – 10