In the present study, six species of puffballs are recorded. Calvatia baixaverdensis and Calvatia brasiliensis are second records for science. Langermannia bicolor var. cirrifera is new record for Northeastern Brazil in the Caatinga biome. Arachnion album is a second record for the Northeastern region. Disciseda bovista and Disciseda verrucosa are the second records for the Caatinga biome. Descriptions of the taxa are provided from morphological data and illustrations.

Invasive exotic plants are one of the most challenging problems facing forest land managers. Many invasive species are shade intolerant and typically do not invade forest sites with dense tree canopies. In contrast, Asiatic bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus Thunb.), a shade-tolerant exotic liana, is capable of colonizing and successfully growing in forest sites and has proven to be an aggressive competitor of native vegetation in the eastern USA. We investigated changes in the presence and cover of bittersweet after a hurricane-created major canopy disturbance in a southeastern USA upland hardwood forest over 20 yr. Bittersweet was present frequently in mesic but rarely in xeric forest sites. Bittersweet increased rapidly for the first 9 yr after a hurricane within disturbed sites; its presence then increased slowly to year 20. Bittersweet was more frequently found within versus outside wind-felled tree gaps; its presence was greater west and south of gap centers within gaps but was greater east and north of centers outside gaps in the unaffected forest. We attributed these location-based differences in presence to differences in available soil moisture. Bittersweet was present in extremely low light environments. As with presence, the rate of increase in bittersweet cover slowed 9 yr after a hurricane. Results of this long-term study will provide forest managers with information to evaluate the potential response of bittersweet to forest management treatments such as timber harvest.

Amur honeysuckle (Lonicera maackii) is an invasive shrub with major effects on native ecosystems in eastern North America. Over the past decade, major outbreaks of the native honeysuckle leaf blight (Insolibasidium deformans) have been observed on Amur honeysuckle in the Ohio River valley on an annual basis, and there is evidence of decline in honeysuckle stands in that region. Recent work suggests that the leaf death caused by this fungal pathogen has the largest effect on small shrubs, particularly those growing in the open. This study looked at shrub and stem diameter distributions of seven open-grown and three forest-canopy stands in northern Kentucky and southwestern Ohio. Shrub diameters were fit to the two-factor Weibull function. All stands had reverse–J-shaped diameter distributions, and the Weibull shape parameters indicated that shrub abundance decreased with diameter in all stands. Stand densities and basal areas fell within the range seen in previous studies. However, stem distributions showed a higher proportion of small stems (and in some cases small dead stems) than seen in the 1980s. This unexpected production and death of small stems is consistent with mortality caused by honeysuckle leaf blight, which targets small-diameter long shoots.

Stellaria alsine Grimm has long been considered a weedy species ranging natively across three continents, with introductions beyond. Phylogenetic evidence suggests that not all populations are closely related, however. Here, I review the evidence supporting the recognition of at least two separate “alsine-like” species. The name S. alsine was first used to describe European material in Linnaean times. The name Stellaria undulata was subsequently used to describe morphologically analogous material from the Asian Far East, but this material has long been considered synonymous with S. alsine. These lineages are not sister taxa and represent only distantly related subclades within Stellaria, and therefore they require independent taxonomic recognition. Material from North America is closely related to Asian material and may fit under a broader concept of S. undulata. Relevant taxonomic changes and a lectotypification are made.

The area surveyed is part of the Edwards Plateau physiographic region in central Texas. It is mostly private property and includes isolated riparian and nonriparian deciduous woodlands. We searched for isolated deciduous woodland communities using satellite imagery and drone flights. Deciduous communities found were in deep canyons but not in riparian communities with physical positions similar to some isolated forests present in the southern Appalachian Mountains in North America. Eight communities were selected for ground surveys and had 16 overstory and 30 understory woody species. Surrounding the deciduous communities were Juniperus-Quercus woodlands (juniper-oak). Acer grandidentatum (Aceraceae, bigtooth maple) overstory density was 169 ± 73 plants/ ha (mean ± SD) and basal area was 9.6 ± 4.7 m²/ha, or 43% relative basal area. Quercus muehlenbergii (Fagaceae, chinkapin oak) and Quercus laceyi (Lacey oak) had the second and third highest basal areas at 6.1 ± 6.1 and 4.4 ± 7.4 m²/ha, or 25% and 18% relative basal area. Size-class distributions were examined to determine recruitment. Distributions had many juveniles, few to no saplings, and a few larger trees. Weibull comparisons suggested little or no replacement of adults of the mature deciduous community species. There was a bottleneck with few or no saplings entering the adult population. Recruitment could be highly episodic depending on fire or drought, but browsing pressure by Odocoileus virginianus (white-tailed deer) seems to be the primary cause of lack of recruitment. Lack of recruitment would mean a loss of species and possibly all of these rare deciduous communities in the future.

Euonymus americanus is a common understory shrub in mesic deciduous forests of eastern North America. Its inconspicuous greenish-white flowers appear in late April and May and are regularly visited by several species of ants and, by night, a species of cockroach. Because the species is self-compatible, these pollinators need not move between plants to effect fertilization and fruit-set. Flowers last for three days and are strongly protandrous with little if any overlap of male and female function. Based on a survey of five years of reports on iNaturalist in Georgia, Prenolepis imparis is the most commonly observed ant, followed by Camponotus pennsylvanicus and Crematogaster lineolata, though Camponotus castaneus was more common than the latter two species at our study sites. Each of these species was found to carry many viable pollen grains, as was a species of cockroach (Cariblatta lutea). Exclusion of ants from flowers resulted in near-zero fruit-set. Nevertheless, addition of pollen increased fruit-set significantly over open-pollinated levels, indicating pollen limitation. The upper limit in terms of potential seeds per fruit is 30, representing six seeds in each of the five locules of a mature capsule, but the average number of seeds per capsule was only 12. Seed viability was high, exceeding 95%.