Minuartia rossii
Minuartia tenella
Ross' sandwort
slender sandwort, slender 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, green, 5–25 cm, stipitate-glandular distally or throughout, internodes of stems 2–5 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.
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.
solitary flowers, axillary or terminal (rarely present);
bracts absent.
7–25+-flowered, open cymes;
bracts subulate to lanceolate, scarious.
0.1–2 cm, glabrous.
0.2–1.5 cm, stipitate-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 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. 0.1–0.2 mm, spheric, 1.5–2.5 mm, equaling sepals.
on stipe ca. 0.1 mm, ovoid, 3–4 mm, longer than sepals.
brown, suborbiculate, compression unknown, ca. 0.6 mm, obscurely reticulate.
brown, suborbiculate with radicle prolonged to rounded beak, somewhat compressed, 0.4–0.6 mm, tuberculate;
tubercles low, rounded, elongate.
= 58 (Russia), 60.
= 24.
Minuartia rossii
Minuartia tenella
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.)
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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