Spergularia macrotheca |
Spergularia media |
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beach sand-spurrey, beach sand-spurry, sticky sand spurry, sticky sand-spurrey |
greater sea-spurrey, media sandspurry, sand spurry, spergulaire marginée, spergulaire moyenne, stout sand-spurrey |
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Habit | Plants strongly perennial with branched, woody base, stout, 5–40 cm, densely stipitate-glandular in inflorescence or throughout. | |||||||||
Taproots | becoming stout, woody. |
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Stems | erect or ascending to prostrate, usually branched proximally; main stem 0.8–3 mm diam. proximally. |
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Leaves | stipules conspicuous, dull white to tan, narrowly triangular, 4.5–11 mm, apex long-acuminate; blade linear, (0.6–)1–5.5 cm, fleshy, apex apiculate to spine-tipped; axillary leaves 1–2+ per cluster. |
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Pedicels | erect, divergent, or reflexed in fruit. |
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Flowers | sepals connate 0.5–1.8 mm proximally, lobes often 3-veined, ovate to lanceolate, 4.5–7 mm, to 8 mm in fruit, margins 0.3–0.7 mm wide, apex blunt to rounded; petals white or pink to rosy, elliptic to obovate, 0.9–1.3 times as long as sepals in flower; stamens 9–10; styles 0.6–3 mm. |
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Capsules | tan, 4.6–10 mm, 0.8–1.4 times as long as sepals. |
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Seeds | ± red-brown, often with submarginal groove or depression, suborbiculate to pyriform, compressed, (0.6–)0.7–1.2 mm, smooth to faintly or prominently tuberculate or sculpturing of parallel, wavy lines or of low, rounded mounds, not papillate; wing absent or white to reddish brown proximally, 0.1–0.3 mm wide, margins irregular. |
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Cymes | simple to 3-compound or flowers solitary and axillary. |
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Spergularia macrotheca |
Spergularia media |
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Distribution |
CA; OR; WA; BC; including nw Mexico
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CA; CO; IL; IN; MA; MI; MT; ND; NM; NY; OH; OR; PA; UT; WY; ON; QC; coastal Europe; Asia; Africa (Mediterranean region) [Introduced widely]
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Discussion | Varieties 3 (3 in the flora). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Varieties 5 (1 in the flora). Although a proposal to reject Spergularia media as a confused name (J. Lambinon 1981) was rejected, some authors still favor that argument, preferring to use the name S. maritima for this species. Spergularia media is one of the “highway halophytes” (A. A. Reznicek 1980) that have spread along highways that are heavily salted during the winter, where saline areas have been created. Spergularia distribution has been investigated in Ohio (A. W. Cusick 1983), where such records were first noted in the early 1970s. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 5, p. 18. | FNA vol. 5, p. 21. | ||||||||
Parent taxa | Caryophyllaceae > subfam. Polycarpoideae > Spergularia | Caryophyllaceae > subfam. Polycarpoideae > Spergularia | ||||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||
Synonyms | Arenaria macrotheca | Arenaria media | ||||||||
Name authority | (Hornemann ex Chamisso & Schlechtendal) Heynhold: Alph. Aufz. Gew. 689. (1846) | (Linnaeus) C. Presl: Fl. Sicul. 161. (1826) | ||||||||
Web links |
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