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spreading nailwort

Habit Plants perennial, often matted; caudex branched, woody.
Stems

prostrate to sprawling, much-branched, 8–15 cm, scabrous-puberulent to puberulent throughout.

Leaves

stipules lanceolate, 2–8 mm, apex acuminate, entire;

blade linear, 8–15(–23) × 0.5–1 mm, leathery, apex shortly cuspidate, puberulent.

Flowers

5-merous, ± ovate, with prominently enlarged hypanthium and calyx tapering only slightly distally, 2.3–3.5 mm, puberulent;

sepals green to purple-brown, midrib and lateral pair of veins ± obscure, oblong to lanceolate-oblong, 1.7–2 mm, leathery to rigid, margins whitish to translucent, 0.05–0.1 mm wide, scarious, apex terminated by awn, hood prominent, rounded-triangular, awn divergent, conic in proximal 1/2–2/3 with yellowish, scabrous spine 0.7–0.9 mm;

staminodes filiform, 0.5–0.8 mm;

style 1, cleft in distal 1/3–2/3, 0.8–1.4 mm.

Cymes

terminal, 3–7-flowered, branched, congested, in clusters 7–25 mm wide.

Utricles

± ovoid, 0.8–0.9 mm, smooth, glabrous.

2n

= 32.

Paronychia depressa

Phenology Flowering summer.
Habitat Dry plains, rocky ridges, hillsides
Elevation 800-3000 m (2600-9800 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
CO; SD; WY
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Paronychia depressa is considered to be closely related to the nearly allopatric P. jamesii.

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

Source FNA vol. 5, p. 36.
Parent taxa Caryophyllaceae > subfam. Paronychioideae > Paronychia
Sibling taxa
P. ahartii, P. americana, P. argyrocoma, P. baldwinii, P. canadensis, P. chartacea, P. congesta, P. drummondii, P. echinulata, P. erecta, P. fastigiata, P. franciscana, P. herniarioides, P. jamesii, P. jonesii, P. lindheimeri, P. maccartii, P. monticola, P. patula, P. pulvinata, P. rugelii, P. sessiliflora, P. setacea, P. virginica, P. wilkinsonii
Synonyms P. jamesii var. depressa, P. depressa var. brevicuspis, P. depressa var. diffusa
Name authority (Torrey & A. Gray) Nuttall ex A. Nelson: Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 26: 236. (1899)
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