Demography of the rare herb, Polygala lewtonii (Polygalaceae), with multiple fires on the Lake Wales Ridge in south-central Florida from 2001-2017 (ongoing)

Demographic data on 5,060 individually marked plants of the endemic
State and federally listed Polygala lewtonii (Lewton's milkwort;
Polygalaceae) were collected from December 2001 to December 2017 at
the Lake Wales Ridge National Wildlife Refuge Carter Creek in
south-central Florida, USA. Data collection is still ongoing. In 220
permanent 25 cm radius circular plots, plants were marked with plastic
toothpicks and wire stake flags with a unique identification number.
Data collection occurred quarterly with survival and recruitment
recorded in March, June, September and December and more detailed
measures of size and fecundity taken in March. This species is
amphicarphic with both showy-open flowers produced in spring
(chasmogamy) and closed, self-pollinating flowers both above- and
belowground produced in late summer (cleistogamy). Therefore, our
fecundity data are based only on chasmogamy. This dataset also
captures post-fire mortality and recruitment events following four
prescribed burns.