Minuartia rossii
Minuartia godfreyi
Ross' sandwort
Godfrey's stitchwort
stout, woody.
filiform.
ascending to spreading, green or often purple, 1–3 cm, glabrous, internodes of flowering stems 0.2–1 times as long as leaves.
erect or ascending, arising from mats of slender, prostrate or ascending, wintering stems, green, 10–40 cm, occasionally stipitate-glandular at nodes, internodes of all stems 1–3 times as long as 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.
sometimes overlapping proximally, connate proximally, with ± loose, herbaceous sheath 0.2–0.4 mm;
blade widely spreading to erect, green, 1-veined abaxially, flat, narrowly elliptic (proximal petiolate blades) to linear (remaining cauline blades), 8–30 × 0.5–3 mm, flexuous, margins not thickened, scarious, occasionally stipitate-glandular, apex green, acute to acuminate, shiny, glabrous;
axillary leaves absent.
solitary flowers, axillary or terminal (rarely present);
bracts absent.
3–5(–7)-flowered, open, leafy cymes;
bracts linear to lanceolate, herbaceous.
0.1–2 cm, glabrous.
1–5 cm, sparsely glandular.
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.
hypanthium disc-shaped;
sepals 3-veined, lanceolate (herbaceous portion linear-lanceolate to lanceolate), 3.5–5 mm, not enlarging in fruit, apex often purple, acute, not hooded, stipitate-glandular;
petals oblong-spatulate, 2.5–3 times as long as sepals, apex rounded, shallowly notched.
on stipe ca. 0.1–0.2 mm, spheric, 1.5–2.5 mm, equaling sepals.
on stipe ca. 0.2 mm, ovoid, 4 mm, shorter than sepals.
brown, suborbiculate, compression unknown, ca. 0.6 mm, obscurely reticulate.
black, suborbiculate to reniform, radicle obscure, laterally compressed, 0.6–0.8 mm, muriculate-papillate.
= 58 (Russia), 60.
Minuartia rossii
Minuartia godfreyi
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.)
Of conservation concern.
Minuartia godfreyi is known from few, very widely scattered populations; it may be most closely related to M. patula and M. muscorum, sharing prominently ribbed sepals with both taxa and black, muriculate-papillate seeds with the latter (R. Kral 1983).
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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