Flora of North America species comparison

The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links

Montia fontana

Montia bostockii

annual water miner's-lettuce, blinks, spring water chickweed, water blinks, water chickweed, water montia

Bostock's minerslettuce, Bostock's montia
Habit Plants annual or biennial, never bulbiferous. Plants perennial, rhizomatous or stoloniferous, not bulbiferous, rooting at nodes.
Stems

prostrate or decumbent, 1–30 cm, freely rooting at nodes, forming mats.

erect, 5–15 cm.
Leaves

opposite, sessile;

blade oblanceolate to rhombic, 2–20 × 0.5–10 mm.

alternate, secund, petiolate;

blade linear, 2–40 × 0.5–2 mm.
Inflorescences

leafy.

1-bracteate;

bract linear to oblanceolate, 10 × 2 mm.
Flowers

1–8, slightly bilateral;

sepals 1–1.5 mm;

petals 5, connate proximally, white, unequal, 1–2 mm;

stamens 3, anther pink or yellow.

1–12(–20);

sepals 3.5–4.5 mm;

petals 5, white with yellow blotches at base, or pinkish, 10–15 mm;

stamens 5, anther yellow.
Seeds

0.7–1.2 mm, tuberculate;

elaiosome present.

0.8–1.5 mm, tuberculate;

elaiosome present.
2n

= 20, 40.

Montia fontana

Montia bostockii
Phenology Flowering spring. Flowering early summer.
Habitat Pools, springs, meadows, other wet or moist places Moist, often north-facing slopes of scree or alpine tundra
Elevation 0-3700 m [0-12100 ft] 0-1000 m [0-3300 ft]
Distribution
from FNA
AK; CA; ID; MA; ME; MT; NH; NV; NY; OR; UT; VT; WA; WY; BC; MB; NB; NL; NS; NT; NU; ON; PE; QC; YT; SPM; Central America; South America; Africa; Greenland; Asia; Europe; Arctic regions
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
from FNA
AK; BC; YT
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Montia fontana displays a multitude of forms varying in stature, leaf shape, and seed size. Segregate species, varieties, and subspecies have been named. Based on my study of worldwide collections of the species, much variation in M. fontana is attributable to phenotypic differentiation of ramets produced by local environmental conditions and unrelated to genetic variation. Until macromolecular or other studies shed light on the variation in M. fontana, it seems pointless to recognize infraspecific taxa or segregate species.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Considered an ancestral species of Montia and Claytonia by some workers, M. bostockii appears related to M. vassilievii (Kuzeneva) McNeill of Asia and M. linearis of North America. The pollen is distinctly tholate with spiniferous saccae. The flowers of both M. bostockii and M. vassilievii closely resemble claytonias but have only three ovules, as opposed to arctic claytonias, which have six.

(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. dichotoma, M. diffusa, M. howellii, M. linearis, M. parvifolia
M. chamissoi, M. dichotoma, M. diffusa, M. fontana, M. howellii, M. linearis, M. parvifolia
Synonyms Claytonia hallii, M. clara, M. funstonii, M. hallii, M. minor Claytonia bostockii, Montiastrum bostockii
Name authority Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 1: 87. (1753) (A. E. Porsild) S. L. Welsh: Great Basin Naturalist 28: 154. (1968)
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).



Type/paste one or more Latin names into the boxes above; matching taxa will show up below the box as you type. You can use the up/down arrow keys to move through the list.

(If the plant you're looking for doesn't show up in the auto-complete list, that means it either isn't described in Flora of North America yet, or it's listed under a synonym. And please note that Flora of North America is still missing several plant families, including Apiaceae, Boraginaceae, and Polemoniaceae.)

Choose a data source: Flora of North America, OregonFlora, UW Burke Herbarium

The species comparison tool is brought to you by:
Northwest Wildflowers