Flora of North America species comparison

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Montia parvifolia

Montia diffusa

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

branching montia, diffuse miner's lettuce, spreading candyflower, spreading 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.

spreading, freely branched, 5–20 cm.
Leaves

basal and alternate, petiolate;

blade oblanceolate, 10–70 × 4–12 mm.

alternate, petiolate, clasping leaf sheaths absent;

blade lanceolate to broadly ovate, more often rhombic to suborbiculate, 20–70 × 10–40 mm.
Inflorescences

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

leafy.
Flowers

1–12, showy;

sepals 2–3.5 mm;

petals 5, pink or white, 6–15 mm;

stamens 5, anther pink.

2–8;

sepals 1.8–3.5 mm;

petals 5, pink or white, 3–5 mm;

stamens 5, anther white to yellow.
Seeds

0.8–1.5 mm;

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

1–1.5 mm, tuberculate;

elaiosome present.
2n

= 22, 44.

= 16.

Montia parvifolia

Montia diffusa
Phenology Flowering late spring-mid summer. Flowering spring–early summer.
Habitat Moist or wet soils and rocky cliffs of coastal and inland mountains Moist woods
Elevation 0-2800 m (0-9200 ft) 0-1200 m (0-3900 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
AK; CA; ID; MT; NV; OR; UT; WA; AB; BC
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
from FNA
CA; 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. dichotoma, M. fontana, M. howellii, M. linearis, M. parvifolia
Synonyms Claytonia parvifolia, Naiocrene parvifolia Claytonia diffusa, Limnalsine diffusa
Name authority (Mociño ex de Candolle) Greene: Fl. Francisc., 181. (1891) (Nuttall) 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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