Meadow Starwort

Stellaria palustris is found along the Saint Lawrence estuary.

Plants perennial, with slender creeping rhizomes. Stems strag-gling, with erect branches, smoothly 4-angled, (20-)30-60 cm, glabrous. Leaves sessile; blade linear-lanceolate, 1.5-5 cm × 1-4 mm, base cuneate, margins smooth, apex acute, glabrous, usually glaucous. Inflorescences terminal, (1-)2-21-flowered cymes; bracts narrowly lanceolate, 2-7 mm, herbaceous or scarious with green midrib, not ciliate. Pedicels ascending, 30-100 mm, glabrous. Flowers 12-18 mm diam.; sepals 5, distinctly 3-veined, lanceolate, 6-8 mm, margins wide, scarious, apex acute, glabrous; petals 5, 7-10 mm, 1.5-2 times as long as sepals; stamens 10; styles 3, erect, 5-7 mm; stigmas club-shaped. Capsules green to straw colored, ovoid-oblong, 8-10 mm, ± equaling sepals, apex acute, opening by 6 valves; carpophore absent. Seeds dark reddish brown, round, 1.2-1.4 mm diam., tuberculate; tubercles shallow, round. 2n = 130-188 (Europe), ca. 198.

Herbs perennial, gray-green, glabrous. Stems tufted, erect, quadrangular, (10--)20--35 cm tall, slender, basally branched, papillose. Leaves sessile, pinkish green, linear to linear-lanceolate, 2--4.5 cm × 2--4 mm, both surfaces glabrous, midvein conspicuous and abaxially papillose, base slightly narrowed, margin papillose, apex acute. Flowers in dichotomous cymes; peduncles 7--10 cm; bracts white, lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, (3--)5--6(--7) mm, margin membranous. Sepals 5, ovate-lanceolate, (4--)5--7 mm, abaxially with 3 conspicuous veins, margin membranous, apex acuminate. Petals 5, 4--7 mm, subequaling or slightly longer than sepals, 2-cleft nearly to base; lobes nearly linear, apex obtuse. Stamens 10, slightly shorter than sepals. Ovary ovoid; styles 3, filiform, ca. 3 mm. Capsule ovoid-cylindric, subequaling or slightly longer than persistent sepals. Seeds numerous, black-brown, suborbicular, conspicuously rugulose. 2n = ca. 100, ca. 130, 174--188.

introduced; Que.; Europe.

Gansu, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Henan, Liaoning, Nei Mongol, Shandong, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan [Afghanistan, Japan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia; SW Asia, Europe].

Flowering early summer.

Hayfields and pastures subject to seasonal flooding; 0-20m.

Grassland slopes, sparse valley forests; 1000--3600 m.

Alsine glauca (Withering) Britton; Stellaria glauca Withering

Stellaria dilleniana Moench (1777), not Leers (1775); S. glauca Withering; ?S. hsinganensis Kitagawa.Stellaria dilleniana Moench (1777), not Leers (1775); S. glauca Withering; ?S. hsinganensis Kitagawa.