| Stellaria alsine | |
|---|---|
 | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Tracheophytes |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Eudicots |
| Order: | Caryophyllales |
| Family: | Caryophyllaceae |
| Genus: | Stellaria |
| Species: | S. alsine |
| Binomial name | |
| Stellaria alsine | |
| Synonyms | |
Stellaria uliginosaMurray | |
Stellaria alsine, the bog stitchwort, is a species of herbaceous perennial flowering plant in the carnation family Caryophyllaceae. It grows in bogs and marshes in Europe and parts of North America.
Bog stitchwort is a rhizomatous perennial plant, with smooth, four-angled stems up to 40 cm (16 in) tall. [2] Its leaves are opposite and narrow, up to 13 mm (0.51 in) long, with untoothed margins but a few marginal hairs towards the leaf-base. [2] The flowers are borne in cymes of 1–5, arising from the axils of the higher leaves. Each flower is around 6 mm (0.24 in) in diameter, with 10 stamens, 3 stigmas, five lanceolate–triangular, green-coloured but scarious-margined sepals, and five slightly shorter white petals. [2] The petals are divided into two almost to their base with the two halves angled apart, [2] so that the two halves of each petal lie over parts of adjacent sepals. [3]
Bog stitchwort grows in various types of wetland habitat; in the British Isles, it is especially characteristic of areas poached by cattle. [4] It flowers in spring and early summer. [2]
Bog stitchwort is widespread in central and western Europe, but is rarer in eastern and southern Europe and the northern half of Scandinavia. [5] It is thought to be native to eastern parts of North America, but to be an introduced species in the Pacific Northwest. [2] It has also become naturalised in South America, in Asia, where it has become a weed of rice fields, [6] and on the Kerguelen Islands in the southern Indian Ocean, where it is an aggressive invasive species. [7]
Stellaria alsine was first described by Johann Friedrich Carl Grimm in 1767. [2] The species has also been widely referred to under the junior synonym Stellaria uliginosa. [8]
Caryophyllaceae, commonly called the pink family or carnation family, is a family of flowering plants. It is included in the dicotyledon order Caryophyllales in the APG III system, alongside 33 other families, including Amaranthaceae, Cactaceae, and Polygonaceae. It is a large family, with 81 genera and about 2,625 known species.
Stellaria is a genus of about 190 species of flowering plants in the family Caryophyllaceae, with a cosmopolitan distribution. Common names include starwort, stitchwort and chickweed.
Minuartia is a genus of flowering plants commonly known as sandworts in the family Caryophyllaceae.
Stellaria media, chickweed, is an annual flowering plant in the family Caryophyllaceae. It is native to Eurasia and naturalized throughout the world, where it is a weed of waste ground, farmland and gardens. It is sometimes grown as a salad crop or for poultry consumption.
Rabelera holostea, known as greater stitchwort, greater starwort, and addersmeat, is a perennial herbaceous flowering plant in the family Caryophyllaceae. It was formerly placed in the genus Stellaria, as Stellaria holostea, but was transferred to the genus Rabelera in 2019 based on phylogenetic analyses. It is the only species in the genus Rabelera. Greater stitchwort is native to Western and Central Europe, including the British Isles.
Stellaria graminea is a species of flowering plant in the family Caryophyllaceae known by the common names common starwort, grass-leaved stitchwort, lesser stitchwort and grass-like starwort.
Minuartia stricta is a species of flowering plant in the family Caryophyllaceae known by the common names bog stitchwort, Teesdale sandwort and rock sandwort. It has a circumboreal distribution, occurring throughout much of the northernmost Northern Hemisphere from the lower Arctic into the alpine climates of mountainous areas in temperate Eurasia and North America. It grows in several types of habitat, including meadows, marshes, heath, beaches and bars, and arctic and alpine tundra.
Stellaria neglecta, greater chickweed, is an annual to short-lived herbaceous perennial flowering plant in the family Caryophyllaceae. It is native to Europe and Asia, where it grows in hedges and woodland margins on neutral to slightly acid, damp soils, and is widespread but rarely abundant. It has been introduced to North America, where it has been spreading in recent decades.
Stellaria borealis is a species of flowering plant in the family Caryophyllaceae known by the common name boreal starwort. It has a circumboreal distribution, occurring throughout northern areas of the Northern Hemisphere. It occurs in many types of moist and wet habitat, including marshes, riverbanks, lakesides, floodplains, talus, ditches, and moist spots in forests and woodlands. It is quite variable in appearance, especially across subspecies. In general, it is a rhizomatous perennial herb forming mats of branching, four-angled stems lined with lance-shaped leaves a few centimeters in length. The inflorescence bears many flowers each with five deeply lobed white petals. Some flowers lack petals and have only the five pointed green sepals.
Stellaria calycantha is a species of flowering plant in the family Caryophyllaceae known by the common name northern starwort. It is native to western North America from Alaska and northwestern Canada to California and New Mexico, as well as eastern Russia. It occurs in subalpine and alpine climates, in many types of moist, shady habitats. It is a rhizomatous perennial herb producing a prostrate to erect stem up to 25 centimeters long, taking a clumpy form. The thin oval leaves have smooth edges and pointed tips, and measure up to 2.5 centimeters in length. The inflorescence bears one or more flowers, each on a long pedicel. Each flower has five pointed green sepals, and some flowers have up to five deeply lobed white petals.
Stellaria crispa is a species of flowering plant in the family Caryophyllaceae known by the common names curled starwort and crisp starwort. It is native to western North America from Alaska south to California and Wyoming, where it grows in moist, shady habitat such as deep forests and streambanks. It is a rhizomatous perennial herb producing a mat of prostrate or trailing stems up to about 40 centimeters long. It is lined with opposite pairs of pointed oval leaves each 1 to 2 centimeters long. Single flowers occur in the leaf axils, each borne on a short pedicel. The flower has five pointed green sepals each a few millimeters long. Some flowers have one or more petals, but most lack these.
Stellaria apetala, lesser chickweed, is an annual herbaceous plant in the flowering plant family Caryophyllaceae. It occurs in short, sandy grassland by the sea and, less often, in similar habitat inland. It is native to Europe and is well established as an introduced species worldwide.
Stellaria littoralis is a species of flowering plant in the family Caryophyllaceae known by the common name beach starwort. It is endemic to the San Francisco Bay Area and North Coast of California, where it grows in moist coast habitat, such as marshes, bogs, and coastal bluffs. It is a rhizomatous perennial herb producing sprawling, branching stems which are four-angled and hairy in texture, reaching up to about 60 centimeters long. The lance-shaped or pointed oval leaves are up to 4.5 centimeters long and are oppositely arranged in pairs. The inflorescence bears several flowers, each on a short pedicel. The flower has five hairy, pointed green sepals each a few millimeters long. There are five white petals, each so deeply lobed it appears to be two.
Stellaria longifolia is a species of flowering plant in the family Caryophyllaceae known by the common name longleaf starwort. It is native to much of the northern half of the Northern Hemisphere, occurring throughout northern Europe and North America. It grows in many types of moist habitat, including meadows, marshes, and roadsides. It is a rhizomatous perennial herb forming clumps with sprawling, branching stems which are mostly hairless except for tiny rough hairs along the edges of the squarish stem. The linear to lance-shaped leaves are up to 3.5 centimeters long and are oppositely arranged in pairs. The inflorescence bears several flowers, each on a short pedicel. The flower has five pointed green sepals each a few millimeters long. There are five white petals, each so deeply lobed it appears to be two.
Stellaria longipes is a species of flowering plant in the family Caryophyllaceae known by the common names longstalk starwort and Goldie's starwort. It has a circumpolar distribution, occurring throughout the northernmost latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. It is a perennial herb that grows in a wide variety of habitat types, including tundra and taiga and many areas farther south with subalpine and alpine climates. It is extremely variable in morphology, its form depending on both genetic makeup and environmental conditions. It has a widely varying number of chromosomes. In general, it is a rhizomatous perennial herb forming mats or clumps, or growing erect. The stems may be short and simple or with sprawling and highly branched. The linear to lance-shaped leaves are usually 1 to 4 centimeters long and are oppositely arranged in pairs. The inflorescence bears one or more flowers, each on a short pedicel. The flower has five pointed green sepals each a few millimeters long. There are five white petals each divided into two lobes, sometimes shallowly, but often so deeply there appear to be two petals. The plant is gynodioecious, with some flowers having functional male and female reproductive parts and others being only female.
Stellaria obtusa is a species of flowering plant in the family Caryophyllaceae known by the common names Rocky Mountain chickweed, blunt-sepaled starwort, and obtuse starwort. It is native to western North America, from British Columbia and Alberta to California to Colorado, where it grows in moist areas in forests and on mountain slopes.
Stellaria irrigua is a species of flowering plant in the family Caryophyllaceae known by the common names umbrella starwort and umbellate starwort. It is native to western North America from Alaska and north-western Canada to the south-western United States, as well as parts of Asia, including Siberia. It grows in subalpine and alpine climates in mountain forests and riverbanks. It is a rhizomatous perennial herb producing a slender prostrate stem up to about 20 centimeters long, sometimes forming clumps or mats. The stem is lined with pairs of oval leaves each up to about 2 centimeters long. The inflorescence is an umbel-shaped array of several flowers each on an arching or erect pedicels. The flower has five pointed green sepals each no more than 3 millimeters long. There are occasionally tiny white petals within the calyx of sepals, but these are generally absent.
Hypericum elodes, commonly known as marsh St John's-wort, is a species of flowering plant in the St. John's wort family Hypericaceae. It is native to Western Europe.
Stellaria nemorum, also known by the common name wood stitchwort, is a stoloniferous herbaceous perennial flowering plant in the family Caryophyllaceae.
Stellaria corei, with the common names of Tennessee chickweed, star chickweed, Tennessee starwort, and Tennessee stitchwort, is a species of flowering plant native to parts of Eastern USA.
