What do dinosaurs, Native Americans, butterfly caterpillars, early settlers, World War I soldiers and animal crackers have in common? The rather surprising answer is a plant: coontie, to be exact. Coontie is North America’s only native cycad, and it has been around since dinosaurs roamed the earth without evolving much since.
Every part of the coontie contains a potent neurotoxin, yet indigenous people learned to process the root to get rid of the toxin. Who were the brave souls who figured out that if you pound the root and rinse it repeatedly with water, then dry it in the sun, it is transformed from being poisonous to becoming an edible starch with many culinary uses?
The Atala butterfly caterpillar somehow evolved to be able to consume the tough and toxic fronds which confer the toxicity on both the caterpillar and adult butterfly--an enormous benefit if you are a protein-rich snack surrounded by hungry predators. The bright aposematic coloration of both caterpillar and butterfly warns potential predators that eating them is a Very Bad Idea.
Those of us who have coontie and Atalas in our gardens know how quickly the caterpillars can consume the plant. So what’s in it for the coontie? The caterpillar’s droppings provide nutrients which are absorbed by the plant, enabling the decimated plant to regrow in what is called a mutualistic relationship that benefits both caterpillar and plant.
But coontie are very slow to regrow. When settlers arrived in South Florida and learned from indigenous people how to process the roots which became a reliable source of starch, the plant’s slow growth meant it wasn’t feasible to grow them commercially, so the plants were foraged. That might have been fine if settlers had used them solely to feed their families, but some had the bright idea to monetize the starch and to start selling it as ‘Florida arrowroot’.
Florida arrowroot was used to make bread for soldiers in the First World War and even went into the manufacture of animal crackers. For a time, it was the biggest industry on the Miami River. But as more and more coontie were foraged and destroyed -- a process called extirpation -- to make money, they became harder and harder to find...until they seemingly disappeared in the first part of the 20th century.
As the coontie disappeared, so did the butterflies whose caterpillars relied on it as their food source. It wasn’t until 1979 when naturalist Roger Hammer discovered coontie on Virginia Key that had escaped extirpation and -- lo and behold -- the fronds were covered with Atala caterpillars, which everyone thought had been extinct in South Florida for decades. Imagine how exciting that discovery must have been! Over the decades since, Atala caterpillars have made a comeback thanks to gardeners in South Florida who began to plant coontie.
What a great lesson: those of us with gardens in South Florida can help make up for the loss of habitat by planting threatened and endangered species. I became alarmed when I started to research the status of the plants at Brockway's garden and discovered that quite a number are listed as ‘threatened or ‘endangered’ in the wild, mostly due to habitat loss and climate change. Since so many native insects and birds rely on these plants for their sustenance and shelter, they are in danger as well. Since insects form the basis of the food web that humans depend on, we have a wonderful opportunity to help save both the native flora and fauna in our gardens while ensuring a more sustainable future for humankind.
