Meadow Valley sandwort

Arenaria stenomeres Eastwood, Leafl. W. Bot. 4: 63. 1944

Plants densely cespitose, green, not glaucous, with woody base. Stems erect, 7-18 cm, glabrous. Leaves: basal leaves persistent; cauline leaves in 5 pairs, not reduced (stems leafy); basal blades spreading, needlelike, 1.5-2 cm × 0.5-1 mm, rigid, not fleshy, apex spinose, glabrous, glaucous. Inflorescences 5-13-flowered, open cymes. Pedicels 4-12 mm, glabrous to stipitate-glandular distally. Flowers: sepals 1-veined, narrowly to broadly lanceolate, 4.5-5 mm, 6.5-7.5 mm in fruit, margins narrow, apex acuminate to spinose, glabrous to stipitate-glandular distally; petals yellowish white, narrowly spatulate, 7.5-8.5 mm, 1.5-1.7 times as long as sepals, apex emarginate; nectaries as lateral and abaxial rounding of base of filaments opposite sepals, 0.3-0.4 mm. Capsules ca. 6 mm, glabrous. Seeds color not known, orbicular, ca. 1 mm, surface not known (mature seeds not observed).

Flowering spring. Limestone cliffs; of conservation concern; 900-1200 m; Nev.

Eremogone stenomeres is known only from a few sites in Clark and Lincoln counties. This species was recognized for its linear petals with notched apices. Rehydration of petals from representative specimens indicates that the lamina fold lengthwise upon drying, thus the linear appearance. When rehydrated, the petals were oblanceolate, with widths within the range of related taxa.