Minuartia rossii |
|
---|---|
Ross' sandwort |
|
Habit | Plants perennial, densely pulvinate to loosely cespitose. |
Taproots | stout, woody. |
Stems | ascending to spreading, green or often purple, 1–3 cm, glabrous, internodes of flowering stems 0.2–1 times as long as leaves. |
Leaves | overlapping, ± tightly (vegetative), ± evenly spaced proximally (cauline), connate-perfoliate proximally, with tight, herbaceous sheath 0.2–0.3 mm; blade upwardly curved, green or often purple, keeled, prominently 1-veined abaxially, subulate, 3-angled, 1–4 × 0.5–0.7 mm, flexuous, margins rounded, herbaceous, smooth, apex green to purple, rounded, navicular, shiny, glabrous; axillary leaves well developed. |
Inflorescences | solitary flowers, axillary or terminal (rarely present); bracts absent. |
Pedicels | 0.1–2 cm, glabrous. |
Flowers | hypanthium disc-shaped; sepals 1-veined, oblong-ovate (herbaceous portion usually purple, oblong-ovate), 1.5–2.5 mm, not enlarging in fruit, apex often purple, obtuse to acuminate, navicular, not hooded, glabrous; petals obovate to spatulate, 1.5–2 times as long as sepals, apex obtuse, entire. |
Capsules | on stipe ca. 0.1–0.2 mm, spheric, 1.5–2.5 mm, equaling sepals. |
Seeds | brown, suborbiculate, compression unknown, ca. 0.6 mm, obscurely reticulate. |
2n | = 58 (Russia), 60. |
Minuartia rossii |
|
Phenology | Flowering spring–summer. |
Habitat | Wet, turfy, gravelly, or sandy calcareous barrens, high arctic, alpine tundra, heathlands |
Elevation | 0-500 m (0-1600 ft) |
Distribution |
AK; NT; NU; YT; Greenland; Europe (Spitzbergen); Asia (Russian Far East) |
Discussion | Minuartia rossii is the northernmost member of the M. rossii complex (S. J. Wolf et al. 1979; B. Maguire 1958), a pulvinate species of moist arctic areas. While specimens occasionally have many flowers, some specimens have few if any, instead reproducing via small axillary fascicles of leaves or short shoots in the upper leaf axils (see also Ö. Nilsson 2001). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 5, p. 133. |
Parent taxa | Caryophyllaceae > subfam. Alsinoideae > Minuartia |
Sibling taxa | |
Synonyms | Arenaria rossii, Alsinanthe rossii, Alsinopsis rossii, Arenaria rossii var. apetala, M. orthotrichoides, M. rolfii, M. rossii var. orthotrichoides |
Name authority | (R. Brown ex Richardson) Graebner: in P. F. A. Ascherson et al., Syn. Mitteleur. Fl. 5(1): 772. (1918) |
Web links |