Flora of North America species comparison

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Montia dichotoma

Montia parvifolia

dwarf miner's-lettuce, dwarf montia

little-leaf miner's lettuce, showy rock montia, small-leaf montia, small-leafed montia, streambank springbeauty
Habit Plants annual, not rhizomatous, stoloniferous, or bulbiferous. Plants perennial, often bul-biferous, with branched caudices, mat forming.
Stems

erect, branched, 1–10 cm.

simple erect or ascending, 10–30 cm.
Leaves

alternate, erect, not distinctly petiolate, with clasping leaf sheaths;

blade linear, 5–50 × 0.5–2 mm.

basal and alternate, petiolate;

blade oblanceolate, 10–70 × 4–12 mm.
Inflorescences

terminal, 1-bracteate;

bract linear to oblanceolate, 1–6 mm.

leafy, from apices of fertile caudex branches (determinate) or from leaf axils of shortened fertile caudex (indeterminate), sometimes bulbiliferous in leaf axils.
Flowers

4–12;

sepals 1.5–2.5 mm;

petals 5, white, 1.5–3 mm;

stamens 3, anther yellow.

1–12, showy;

sepals 2–3.5 mm;

petals 5, pink or white, 6–15 mm;

stamens 5, anther pink.
Seeds

0.8–1.2 mm, tuberculate;

elaiosome absent.

0.8–1.5 mm;

eliaosome rounded, minute, shorter than 0.5 mm, shiny, appearing smooth.
2n

= 14.

= 22, 44.

Montia dichotoma

Montia parvifolia
Phenology Flowering spring. Flowering late spring-mid summer.
Habitat Moist or transitional wetland habitat in coastal and inland valleys Moist or wet soils and rocky cliffs of coastal and inland mountains
Elevation 800-1600 m (2600-5200 ft) 0-2800 m (0-9200 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
CA; ID; OR; WA; BC
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
from FNA
AK; CA; ID; MT; NV; OR; UT; WA; AB; BC
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Montia parvifolia is a variable diploid and tetraploid species. Plants with larger flowers, leaves, and seeds have been treated as var. flagellaris (Bongard) C. L. Hitchcock or as the separate species M. sweetseri Henderson. Because the complex has not been studied using modern methods, and the variation observed in herbarium specimens has no correlated geographical base, I adopt the position of K. L. Chambers (1993) and do not recognize the two above-mentioned taxa at this time. I equate the species situation here to that of M. fontana and choose not to recognize infraspecific taxa.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 4, p. 487. FNA vol. 4.
Parent taxa Portulacaceae > Montia Portulacaceae > Montia
Sibling taxa
M. bostockii, M. chamissoi, M. diffusa, M. fontana, M. howellii, M. linearis, M. parvifolia
M. bostockii, M. chamissoi, M. dichotoma, M. diffusa, M. fontana, M. howellii, M. linearis
Synonyms Claytonia dichotoma, Montiastrum dichotomum Claytonia parvifolia, Naiocrene parvifolia
Name authority (Nuttall) Howell: Erythea 1: 36. (1893) (Mociño ex de Candolle) Greene: Fl. Francisc., 181. (1891)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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