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Project Noah Nature School
Cerastium alpinum
”Plants perennial, mat-forming, rhizomatous. Stems prostrate or ascending, tomentose (very rarely subglabrous), hairs white, trans-lucent, long, soft, flexuous, some usually also short and glandular; flowering shoots ascending, 5-20 cm; small axillary tufts of leaves usually absent; nonflowering shoots ± prostrate, to 6 cm. Leaves marcescent or not, sessile; blade obovate or ovate to elliptic-oblanceolate, elliptic, or lanceolate, usually 10-18 × 5-7 mm, apex obtuse, pubescence as on stems. Inflorescences open, (1-)2-4-flowered cymes; bracts lanceolate, acute, margins narrow, scarious, glandular-pubescent. Pedicels straight but often becoming angled at base and curved at apex, slender, 5-30 mm, often elongating to 3 or 4 times as long as sepals, pubescence usually dense, hairs both long, flexuous, multicellular, and short, glandular, viscid. Flowers: sepals green, often violet tipped, narrowly elliptic-lanceolate, 7.5-10 mm, margins ± narrow, apex acute to obtuse, densely pubescent, hairs both long, eglandular and short, glandular; petals 1-2 times as long as sepals, apex shallowly 2-fid; stamens 10; styles 5. Capsules cylindric, slightly curved, 12-16 mm, to 2 times as long as sepals; teeth 10, erect, margins convolute. Seeds dark brown, 1-1.4 mm diam., acutely tuberculate; testa not inflated. 2n = 72, 108.”
Greenland, Canada, Europe.
Spotted on Jul 25, 2010
Submitted on Oct 30, 2012
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