Minuartia muscorum
Minuartia tenella
Dixie stitchwort, starwort
slender sandwort, slender stitchwort
filiform.
filiform.
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.
erect, green, 5–25 cm, stipitate-glandular distally or throughout, internodes of stems 2–5 times as long as 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.
overlapping proximally, often connate basally, with loose, scarious sheath 0.2–0.5 mm;
blade straight to outwardly curved, green, flat to concave, prominently 1-veined abaxially, narrowly lanceolate to subulate, 5–17 × 0.5–1.5 mm, flexuous, margins not thickened, often scarious, sometimes ciliate or stipitate-glandular, apex purple, apiculate, navicular, shiny to dull, glabrous or stipitate-glandular;
axillary leaves often present.
5–50+-flowered, open cymes;
bracts lanceolate to subulate, herbaceous.
7–25+-flowered, open cymes;
bracts subulate to lanceolate, scarious.
0.6–5.5 cm, stipitate-glandular.
0.2–1.5 cm, stipitate-glandular.
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.
hypanthium disc-shaped;
sepals prominently 3-veined, ovate to narrowly so (herbaceous portion narrowly ovate to lanceolate), 2.5–3 mm, not enlarging in fruit, apex green to purple, acute to acuminate, not hooded, densely stipitate-glandular;
petals obovate, 1.5–2 times as long as sepals, apex rounded, entire.
on stipe ca. 0.1 mm or shorter, ovoid to broadly so, 5.2–7 mm, longer than sepals.
on stipe ca. 0.1 mm, ovoid, 3–4 mm, longer than sepals.
black, suborbiculate, radicle obscure, plump to slightly compressed, 0.6–0.8 mm, muriculate-papillate.
brown, suborbiculate with radicle prolonged to rounded beak, somewhat compressed, 0.4–0.6 mm, tuberculate;
tubercles low, rounded, elongate.
= 24.
Minuartia muscorum
Minuartia tenella
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.)
Although B. Maguire (1951, 1958) included Minuartia tenella within his concept of Arenaria stricta (M. michauxii), we see little more than a superficial resemblance between the taxa as we circumscribe them.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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