Montia parvifolia |
Montia linearis |
|
---|---|---|
little-leaf miner's lettuce, showy rock montia, small-leaf montia, small-leafed montia, streambank springbeauty |
line-leaf Indian lettuce, line-leaf montia, narrow leaf water chickweed, narrow-leaf montia, narrow-leafed montia, narrowleaf miner's-lettuce |
|
Habit | Plants perennial, often bul-biferous, with branched caudices, mat forming. | Plants annual, not rhizomatous, stoloniferous, or bulbiferous. |
Stems | simple erect or ascending, 10–30 cm. |
erect, branched or simple, 2–30 cm. |
Leaves | basal and alternate, petiolate; blade oblanceolate, 10–70 × 4–12 mm. |
alternate, erect, not distinctly petiolate, with clasping leaf sheaths; blade linear, 2–60 × 1–4 mm. |
Inflorescences | leafy, from apices of fertile caudex branches (determinate) or from leaf axils of shortened fertile caudex (indeterminate), sometimes bulbiliferous in leaf axils. |
terminal, 1-bracteate; bract linear to oblanceolate, to 20 × 2 mm. |
Flowers | 1–12, showy; sepals 2–3.5 mm; petals 5, pink or white, 6–15 mm; stamens 5, anther pink. |
2–8; sepals 3–7 mm; petals 5, white, 4–6 mm; stamens 3–5, anther yellow. |
Seeds | 0.8–1.5 mm; eliaosome rounded, minute, shorter than 0.5 mm, shiny, appearing smooth. |
1.2–2.6 mm, tuberculate; elaiosome absent. |
2n | = 22, 44. |
= 28. |
Montia parvifolia |
Montia linearis |
|
Phenology | Flowering late spring-mid summer. | Flowering spring. |
Habitat | Moist or wet soils and rocky cliffs of coastal and inland mountains | Dry to moist habitats, coastal and inland valleys to montane, coniferous forests |
Elevation | 0-2800 m (0-9200 ft) | 0-2500 m (0-8200 ft) |
Distribution |
AK; CA; ID; MT; NV; OR; UT; WA; AB; BC
|
AZ; CA; CO; ID; MS; MT; NV; OR; UT; WA; WY; AB; BC; SK
|
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.) |
Montia linearis is a highly uniform species. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 4. | FNA vol. 4, p. 488. |
Parent taxa | Portulacaceae > Montia | Portulacaceae > Montia |
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | Claytonia parvifolia, Naiocrene parvifolia | Claytonia linearis |
Name authority | (Mociño ex de Candolle) Greene: Fl. Francisc., 181. (1891) | (Douglas ex Hooker) Greene: Fl. Francisc., 181. (1891) |
Web links |
|
|