Serpentine stitchwort or sandwort, minuartie de la serpentine

Arenaria marcescens Fernald, Rhodora 21: 15. 1919; A. laricifolia Linnaeus var. marcescens (Fernald) B. Boivin

Plants perennial, mat-forming or more commonly straggly. Taproots stout, woody. Stems as-cending, green, 4-6 cm, glabrous proximally, stipitate-glandular distally, internodes of flowering stems 6-8 times as long as leaves. Leaves tightly overlapping (vegetative), variably spaced (cauline), usually connate proximally, with tight, scarious to herbaceous sheath 0.5-1.5 mm; blade straight to outwardly curved, green, 3-angled, prominently 1-veined abaxially, subulate, 4-8 × 0.3-0.8 mm, flexuous, margins not thickened, herbaceous, smooth, apex green, rounded to truncate, sometimes apiculate, shiny, glabrous; axillary leaves present among vegetative leaves. Inflorescences solitary flowers, terminal; bracts lance-subulate, herbaceous. Pedicels 0.5-1.5 cm, usually densely stipitate-glandular. Flowers: hypanthium cup-shaped; sepals 3-veined, ovate to broadly lanceolate (herbaceous portion oblong to narrowly ovate), 3-4 mm, not enlarging in fruit proximally, apex often purple, rounded, hooded or not, stipitate-glandular; petals white or rarely lilac, spatulate to spatulate-obovate, 1.5-2 times as long as sepals, apex rounded, entire. Capsules narrowly ellipsoid, 6-10 mm, longer than sepals. Seeds brown, suborbiculate with radicle prolonged into beak, somewhat compressed, 0.9-1.2 mm, smooth.

Flowering summer. Ultramafic ledges and barrens; of conservation concern; 200-1000 m; Nfld. and Labr. (Nfld.), Que.; Vt.

Marcescent leaves are a characteristic feature of this species.