black mangrove
Avicennia germinans
This tree actively secretes excess salt through specialized glands on its leaves, which can be licked to taste the salt crystals.
- Scientific name
- Avicennia germinans
- Taxonomy
- Plantae › Tracheophyta › Magnoliopsida › Lamiales › Acanthaceae › Avicennia
- IUCN Red List status
- Least Concern
- Population trend
- stable
- Biome
- wetland
- Habitat
- Coastal intertidal zones, estuaries, salt marshes, and muddy shorelines.
- Diet
- Autotrophic (photosynthesis, extracting nutrients from saline soils).
- Range
- Florida, Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean, Central America, South America, West Africa
- Size
- Typically 3 to 15 meters tall, with a canopy spread of 5 to 10 meters.
- Lifespan
- Up to 100 years or more
- Active
- diurnal
- Threats
- Coastal development, pollution, oil spills, and climate-induced extreme weather events.
- Safe to approach?
- Harmless. Feel free to observe, photograph, and kayak through mangrove channels. Avoid stepping on or damaging the delicate, pencil-like pneumatophores (breathing roots) protruding from the mud. No medical action is needed upon physical contact, though washing hands after touching salt-crusted leaves is recommended.
The black mangrove ( Avicennia germinans ), is a shrub in the acanthus family, Acanthaceae. It grows in tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas, on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and on the Atlantic coast of tropical Africa, where it thrives on the sandy and muddy shores that seawater reaches. It is common throughout coastal areas of Texas and Florida, and ranges as far north as southern Louisiana and coastal Georgia in the United States.
Photo: Douglas Goldman, CC-BY-SA, via iNaturalist
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