Minuartia caroliniana

Plants perennial. Taproots stout, woody; crown with radiating subterranean branches. Stems erect to ascending, green, 8–28 cm, glabrous, internodes of flowering-stems 0.3–10 times as long as leaves. Leaves variably spaced distally, overlapping (proximal 1/3), connate proximally, with tight, scarious to herbaceous sheath 0.2–1.5 mm; blade straight to slightly spreading, green, concave, 3-veined, lateral-veins less prominent, lanceolate to subulate, 2–13 × 1–5 mm, rigid, margins rounded, scarious in proximal 1/2–2/3, smooth, apex green, blunt to apiculate, navicular, shiny, glabrous; axillary leaves present. Inflorescences 5–12+-flowered, narrow cymes; bracts ovate to subulate, ± scarious. Pedicels 0.2–3 cm, densely stipitate-glandular. Flowers: hypanthium disc to cupshaped; sepals obscurely veined, ± broadly ovate (herbaceous portion ± broadly ovate), 2.5–3 mm, not enlarging in fruit, apex green, rounded, not hooded, stipitate-glandular proximally; petals spatulate, 2.5–3.2 times as long as sepals, apex broadly rounded, entire. Capsules on stipe ca 0.1 mm, ovoid, 4.7–5 mm, longer than sepals. Seeds brown, suborbiculate, without prolonged beak, not compressed, 0.6–0.65 mm, tuberculate; tubercles low, rounded.

Phenology: Flowering spring–early summer.
Habitat: Oak or pine woodlands, dry, open, sandy areas
Elevation: 0-100 m

Del., Fla., Ga., Md., N.J., N.Y., N.C., R.I., S.C., Va.

Discussion

Selected References

None.

Lower Taxa