Uvularia puberula

Rhizomes short, 0.5-1 cm, bearing numerous, clustered, fleshy roots; stolons absent. Stems 1-several, 1-branched, angled and puberulent distally, especially at nodes, 1-4.5 dm, bearing 1 leaf below lowest branch. Leaf blades sessile, broadly oblong-elliptic, 4-8(-8.5) × 1.5-3.5(-4) cm, puberulent on abaxial veins, margins minutely papillose, apex acute to acuminate. Flowers 1-3 per stem; peduncles 0.5-2 cm, ebracteate; tepals greenish to pale yellow, 10-25 × 2-4 mm, smooth adaxially, apex rounded; stamens 6.5-17 mm; anthers 5-12 mm; connectives 0.6-0.8 mm; ovary sessile or subsessile, sharply triangular; style 8-14 mm; stigma lobes 4-6 mm. Capsules sharply 3-winged, broadly ellipsoid, 1.5-3.7 × 1-2 cm, not beaked. Seeds 3-3.5 mm; arils crested. 2n = 14.

Flowering spring--early summer. Moist to dry, open woods; 0--900 m; Ga., Md., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Pa., S.C., Tenn., Va., W.Va.

Much like no. 2 [Uvularia sessilifolia L.] at anthesis; stem puberulent in lines below the lf- bases; lvs at first rough-margined, green beneath, at maturity minutely serrulate, rather rigid, smooth and shining, rounded at base, often persistent through the winter; tep greenish-yellow, 15-27 mm; styles separate to well below the middle, about equaling to much exceeding the anthers; fr 3-angled, sessile, 20-30 mm; 2n=14. Mt. woods; Md., sw. Pa., Va. and W.Va. to Ga.; also on the coastal plain from L.I. to S.C. in a form with usually smooth stem and thinner lvs, sometimes segregated as var. nitida (Britton) Fernald. May. (Oakesia puberula; Oakesiella puberula; U. pudica)

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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