Minuartia muscorum |
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Dixie stitchwort, starwort |
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Habit | Plants annual. |
Taproots | filiform. |
Stems | erect, green, 10–55 cm, glabrous or weakly stipitate-glandular distally, internodes of all stems 0.5–2.5 times as long as leaves; wintering stems absent. |
Leaves | not overlapping, connate proximally, with loose, scarious sheath 0.4–0.8 mm; blade straight to variously curved, green, flat, 1-veined, linear-lanceolate to oblanceolate, (5–)10–35(–50) × (0.6–)1.5–3.2 mm, flexuous, margins not thickened, herbaceous or thinly scarious, smooth, apex green, acute, flat, dull, glabrous; axillary leaves absent. |
Inflorescences | 5–50+-flowered, open cymes; bracts lanceolate to subulate, herbaceous. |
Pedicels | 0.6–5.5 cm, stipitate-glandular. |
Flowers | hypanthium shallowly disc-shaped; sepals prominently 3-veined, lanceolate (herbaceous portion narrowly lanceolate), 3–4 mm, to 5 mm in fruit, apex green, acute, not hooded, stipitate-glandular; petals obovate, 1.6–3 times as long as sepals, apex rounded, broadly notched. |
Capsules | on stipe ca. 0.1 mm or shorter, ovoid to broadly so, 5.2–7 mm, longer than sepals. |
Seeds | black, suborbiculate, radicle obscure, plump to slightly compressed, 0.6–0.8 mm, muriculate-papillate. |
Minuartia muscorum |
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Phenology | Flowering spring–summer. |
Habitat | Prairies, meadows, roadsides |
Elevation | 200-500 m (700-1600 ft) |
Distribution |
AL; AR; LA; MO; OK; TN; TX
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Discussion | Minuartia muscorum is closely related to M. patula, and is distinguished by the often longer and wider leaves, often longer distal stem internodes, consistently three-veined sepals, and shiny, black, muriculate-papillate seeds. B. Maguire (1951) treated this taxon as both a variety of Arenaria patula and a new species; see R. K. Rabeler (1992) for a review of the curious nomenclatural history. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 5, p. 129. |
Parent taxa | Caryophyllaceae > subfam. Alsinoideae > Minuartia |
Sibling taxa | |
Synonyms | Stellaria muscorum, Arenaria muriculata, Arenaria patula var. robusta, M. muriculata, M. patula var. robusta |
Name authority | (Fassett) Rabeler: Sida 15: 95. (1992) |
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