Corn Spurry

Spergula arvensis is often a significant weed in sandy crop lands, but it is sometimes used as a forage crop in areas with poor, sandy soils; it was intentionally introduced to Crawford County, Michigan, in 1888 (O. Clute and O. Palmer 1893). Historical collections are known also from Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota, where Spergula arvensis may have been introduced but apparently did not persist.

This plant is a weed of wheat fields, and is used as fodder.

Plants glabrous or, often, glan-dular. Stems usually branched proximally, 10-50+ cm. Leaf blades usually appearing terete, 1.5-3(-5) cm, margins often revolute, forming abaxial channel. Pedicels erect to ascending, reflexed, secund in fruit. Flowers: sepals 3.5-5 mm; petals ovate, 3/ 4-1 times as long as sepals in flower, apex obtuse; stamens usually 10. Capsule valves 3.5-5 mm.  Seeds sometimes keeled or winged, subglobose, 1-1.1 mm wide, surface minutely roughened or obscurely low-tuberculate (50×), covered with white, club-shaped papillae in part or throughout (packing of seeds in capsule may prevent papillae development in spots), wings white, ± 0.1 mm wide. 2n = 18, 36 (both Europe).

Plants annual. Stems (7--)13--50(--60) cm, pilose, apically glandular hairy. Stipules triangular-ovate, small, soon deciduous. Leaf blade linear, (1.1--)1.5--4 cm × 0.5--0.7 mm, abaxially channeled, glabrous or glandular pubescent, apex acute. Cymes lax, at first dichasial, upper branches monochasial. Pedicel 1.5--2.5 cm, slender. Sepals ovate, 3(--5) mm, glandular pub-scent, apex subacute to obtuse. Petals obovate, slightly shorter than to slightly longer than sepals, apex obtuse. Stamens 10, shorter than ovary. Ovary ovoid; style extremely short; stigmas 5. Capsule ovoid, ca. 4 mm in diam., slightly longer than sepals. Seed gray-black, subglobose, slightly compressed, 1--2 mm, both surfaces often with minute, pale, club-shaped papillae, margin with narrow wing. Fl. Jun--Jul, fr. Jul--Aug.

An almost cosmopolitan weed.

introduced; Greenland; St. Pierre and Miquelon; Alta., B.C., N.B., Nfld. and Labr. (Nfld.), N.W.T., N.S., Ont., P.E.I., Que., Sask., Yukon; Ala., Alaska, Ark., Calif., Colo., Conn., Del., D.C., Fla., Ga., Idaho, Ill., Ind., Ky., La., Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., Minn., Miss., Mo., Mont., N.H., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Ohio, Oreg., Pa., R.I., S.C., Tex., Vt., Va., Wash., W.Va., Wis., Wyo.; Eurasia; introduced in Central America, South America, Asia (Korea), Africa, Australia.

900 m

Flowering spring-early summer.

Sandy roadsides, cultivated fields, other disturbed areas; 10-2000m.

Grasslands, riverbanks. SW Guizhou, N Heilongjiang, Shandong, Yunnan [Bhutan, N India, Japan, Kazakhstan, Philippines, Russia, Sikkim; N Africa, SW Asia, Europe, North America].

Spergula arvensis var. sativa (Boenninghausen) Mertens & W. D. J. Koch

Spergula linicola Boreau ex Nyman; S. maxima Weihe; S. sativa Boenninghausen; S. vulgaris Boenninghausen.