Montia

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Montia
Illustration Montia fontana0.jpg
Montia fontana
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Order: Caryophyllales
Family: Montiaceae
Genus: Montia
L.
Species

about 12, see text

Synonyms [1]
Synonyms
  • Cameraria Fabr.
  • Claytoniella Jurtzev
  • Crunocallis Rydb.
  • Laterifissum Dulac
  • Leptrina Raf.
  • Limnalsine Rydb.
  • Maxia Ö.Nilsson
  • Mona Ö.Nilsson
  • Montiastrum Rydb.
  • Naiocrene Rydb.
  • Neopaxia Ö.Nilsson
  • Paxia Ö.Nilsson

Montia is a genus of plants in the family Montiaceae. Species in this genus are known generally as miner's lettuce or water chickweed. All of the species in the genus have edible leaves. [2] It is found worldwide, except in Asia. [1]

Montias are known from fossilized seeds recovered from sediments of the Pleistocene Tomales Formation and from a small paleoflora at San Bruno. [3] [4] Further, Daniel Axelrod discussed Montia howellii as one of the biogeographically significant species comprising the Millerton paleoflora at Tomales. [5]

The genus name of Montia is in honour of Giuseppe Monti (1682–1760), an Italian chemist and botanist. [6] It was first described and published in Sp. Pl. on page 87 in 1753. [1]

Montia perfoliata, now Claytonia perfoliata , the species for which the term miner's lettuce was coined, is distributed throughout the Mountain West of North America in moist soils and prefers areas which have been recently disturbed. The species got its name due to its use as a fresh salad green by miners in the 1849 California Gold Rush. [7]

Selected species:

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<i>Claytonia perfoliata</i> Species of edible flowering plant

Claytonia perfoliata, commonly known as miner's lettuce, Indian lettuce, or winter purslane, is a flowering plant in the family Montiaceae. It is an edible, fleshy, herbaceous, annual plant native to the western mountain and coastal regions of North America.

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<i>Claytonia</i> Genus of flowering plants

Claytonia is a genus of flowering plants native to Asia, North America, and Central America. The vitamin-rich leaves can be eaten raw or cooked, and the tubers can be prepared like potatoes.

<i>Claytonia sibirica</i> Species of flowering plant in the family Montiaceae

Claytonia sibirica, the pink purslane, candy flower, Siberian spring beauty or Siberian miner's lettuce, is a flowering plant in the family Montiaceae, native to the Commander Islands of Siberia, and western North America from the Aleutian Islands and coastal Alaska south through Haida Gwaii, Vancouver Island, Cascade and Coast Ranges, to a southern limit in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Populations are also known from the Wallowa Mountains, Klamath Mountains, northern Idaho, and The Kootenai. A synonym is Montia sibirica. The plant was introduced into the United Kingdom by the 18th century, where it has become very widespread.

San Bruno Creek is an intermittent stream that rises on the eastern slopes of the Northern Santa Cruz Mountains in San Mateo County, California, USA. The headwaters descend a relatively steep canyon east of Skyline Boulevard in a tortuous course. Comparison of topographic maps from 1896 and 1939 illustrates the extreme modification in the lower reaches due to urban development from the rapidly expanding population. The San Bruno Creek watershed was originally settled by a tribe of the Ohlone, and later this locale was part of the Spanish missions' landholdings.

<i>Montia fontana</i> Species of flowering plant

Montia fontana, commonly known as blinks or water blinks, water chickweed or annual water miner's lettuce, is a herbaceous annual plant of the genus Montia. It is a common plant that can be found in wet environments around the globe, from the tropics to the Arctic. It is quite variable in morphology, taking a variety of forms. It is sometimes aquatic.

<i>Empetrum nigrum</i> Plant in the heather family Ericaceae

Empetrum nigrum, crowberry, black crowberry, or, in western Alaska, blackberry, is a flowering plant species in the heather family Ericaceae with a near circumboreal distribution in the Northern Hemisphere. It is usually dioecious, but there is a bisexual tetraploid subspecies, Empetrum nigrum subsp. hermaphroditum, which occurs in more northerly locations and at higher altitude.

<i>Montia chamissoi</i> Species of flowering plant

Montia chamissoi is a species of flowering plant in the family Montiaceae known by the common names of water minerslettuce, water montia, Indian lettuce, and toad lily. It is native to much of western North America from Alaska to the southwestern and central United States and also in British Columbia. It grows in moist to wet soils in a variety of habitat types, such as meadows, wetlands, plains, and montanes. It is sometimes aquatic, anchoring in mud and floating in water.

<i>Montia howellii</i> Species of flowering plant

Montia howellii is a species of flowering plant in the family Montiaceae known by the common names Howell's miner's lettuce and Howell's montia. It is native to western North America from British Columbia to northern California, where it grows in moist to wet habitat, including vernal pools and meadows. It sometimes grows in shallow standing water such as puddles. The species is known from fossilized seeds recovered from sediments of the Pleistocene Tomales Formation and from a small paleoflora at San Bruno. Further, Daniel Axelrod discussed Montia howellii as one of the biogeographically significant species comprising the Millerton Palaeoflora at Tomales.

<i>Montia parvifolia</i> Species of flowering plant

Montia parvifolia is a species of flowering plant in the family Montiaceae known by the common names little-leaf miner's lettuce, small-leaved blinks and small-leaved montia. It is native to western North America from Alaska to California to Montana, where it grows in moist to wet areas in several types of mountain habitat.

<i>Allium victorialis</i> Species of flowering plant

Allium victorialis, commonly known as victory onion, Alpine leek, and Alpine broad-leaf allium is a broad-leaved Eurasian species of wild onion. It is a perennial of the Amaryllis family that occurs widely in mountainous regions of Europe and parts of Asia.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Montia L." Plants of the World Online . Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew . Retrieved 27 October 2021.
  2. Whitney, Stephen (1985). Western Forests (The Audubon Society Nature Guides). New York: Knopf. p.  545. ISBN   0-394-73127-1.
  3. Mason, Herbert L. 1932. Pleistocene Flora from San Bruno. Carnegie Institute of Washington Publication No. 415, pages 25-44
  4. Mason, Herbert L. 1934. Pleistocene Flora from the Tomales Formation. Carnegie Institute of Washington Publication No. 415, pages 81-179.
  5. Axelrod, D. I. 1983. New Pleistocene Conifer Records, Coastal California. University of California Publications Geological Sciences Volume 127. Berkeley: University of California Press, 31 pp ISBN   0-520-09707-6
  6. Burkhardt, Lotte (2018). Verzeichnis eponymischer Pflanzennamen – Erweiterte Edition [Index of Eponymic Plant Names – Extended Edition](pdf) (in German). Berlin: Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum, Freie Universität Berlin. doi:10.3372/epolist2018. ISBN   978-3-946292-26-5 . Retrieved 1 January 2021.
  7. Edible and Medicinal plants of the West, Gregory L. Tilford, ISBN   0-87842-359-1