Sagina nodosa

Plants perennial, tufted, pubescent or glabrous. Stems ascending to loosely spreading or prostrate, simple or with few to many lateral branches bearing only tiny, succulent, subulate leaves, not filiform. Leaves: axillary fascicles of subulate, fleshy leaves among distal cauline leaves, giving knotted appearance; basal ascending, forming tuft, not in rosettes, blade linear, ca. 15-30 mm, herbaceous, apex apiculate to mucronate, glabrous or glandular; cauline conspicuously connate basally, cuplike, proximal with blade linear to subulate, apex apiculate to mucronate, glabrous or glandular-pubescent, axillary fascicles of leaves absent; distal with blade subulate, 1-1.5 mm, fleshy, apex mucronate, glabrous. Pedicels filiform, base glabrous or glandular-pubescent. Flowers terminal and axillary, 5-merous or 4- and 5-merous; calyx base glabrous or glandular-pubescent; sepals elliptic, 2-3 mm, hyaline margins rarely purplish, apex frequently purplish, obtuse to rounded, remaining appressed after capsule dehiscence; petals elliptic to orbiculate, 3-4.5 mm, ca. 2 times sepal length; stamens 8 or 10. Capsules 3-4 mm, longer than sepals, dehiscing to base. Seeds dark brown, ovoid to reniform, laterally compressed, 0.5 mm, smooth or distinctly pebbled, abaxial groove present or absent.Subspecies 2 (2 in the flora): North America, Europe.

Obviously perennial, decumbent to erect, 5-15 cm, with conspicuous tufts of basal lvs; lvs linear-subulate, 5-20 cm, triquetrous, the tip mucronate, boat-shaped, the upper cauline lvs reduced; short sterile shoots replacing some or all fls; fls terminating the slender branches, or on slender pedicels 4-12 mm in a branching infl; sep 5 (or 4 on some fls), broadly ovate or oblong, 2 mm, erect-appressed at maturity and about equaling the 5-valved fr; pet nearly twice as long as the sep; stamens 10; seeds 0.5 mm, plump, obliquely subreniform or nearly globose; minutely tessellate-tuberculate in lines or ridges, scarcely grooved. Polyploid series based on x=11. Rocky or sandy soil, moist shores, or beaches; circumboreal, s. in Amer. to Mass., Lake Superior (incl. Keweenaw Pt.), and Alta. Summer. The widespread native Amer. phase, glabrous throughout, or with only the pedicels and calyx-bases glandular-hairy, is var. borealis (Crow) Cronquist. The European var. nodosa, with the stems, pedicels, calyx-bases, and often the lf-margins glandular-hairy, is intr. along the coast from Nf. and Que. to Mass.

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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