Flora of North America species comparison

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Montia parvifolia

Montia dichotoma

little-leaf miner's lettuce, showy rock montia, small-leaf montia, small-leafed montia, streambank springbeauty

dwarf miner's-lettuce, dwarf montia
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, 1–10 cm.
Leaves

basal and alternate, petiolate;

blade oblanceolate, 10–70 × 4–12 mm.

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

blade linear, 5–50 × 0.5–2 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, 1–6 mm.
Flowers

1–12, showy;

sepals 2–3.5 mm;

petals 5, pink or white, 6–15 mm;

stamens 5, anther pink.

4–12;

sepals 1.5–2.5 mm;

petals 5, white, 1.5–3 mm;

stamens 3, anther yellow.
Seeds

0.8–1.5 mm;

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

0.8–1.2 mm, tuberculate;

elaiosome absent.
2n

= 22, 44.

= 14.

Montia parvifolia

Montia dichotoma
Phenology Flowering late spring-mid summer. Flowering spring.
Habitat Moist or wet soils and rocky cliffs of coastal and inland mountains Moist or transitional wetland habitat in coastal and inland valleys
Elevation 0-2800 m (0-9200 ft) 800-1600 m (2600-5200 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
AK; CA; ID; MT; NV; OR; UT; WA; AB; BC
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
from FNA
CA; ID; OR; WA; 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. FNA vol. 4, p. 487.
Parent taxa Portulacaceae > Montia Portulacaceae > Montia
Sibling taxa
M. bostockii, M. chamissoi, M. dichotoma, M. diffusa, M. fontana, M. howellii, M. linearis
M. bostockii, M. chamissoi, M. diffusa, M. fontana, M. howellii, M. linearis, M. parvifolia
Synonyms Claytonia parvifolia, Naiocrene parvifolia Claytonia dichotoma, Montiastrum dichotomum
Name authority (Mociño ex de Candolle) Greene: Fl. Francisc., 181. (1891) (Nuttall) Howell: Erythea 1: 36. (1893)
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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