Slender stitchwort, slender sandwort

Greniera tenella J. Gay, Ann. Sci. Nat., Bot., sér. 3, 4: 27. 1845, based on Arenaria tenella Nuttall in J. Torrey and A. Gray, Fl. N. Amer. 1: 179. 1838, not Kitaibel 1814; Alsinopsis tenella (J. Gay) A. Heller; Arenaria macra A. Nelson & J. F. Macbride; A. stricta Michaux; A. stricta subsp. macra (A. Nelson & J. F. Macbride) Maguire; A. stricta var. puberulenta (M. Peck) C. L. Hitchcock

Plants annual. Taproots filiform. Stems erect, green, 5-25 cm, stipitate-glandular distally or throughout, internodes of stems 2-5 times as long as leaves. Leaves overlapping proximally, often connate basally, with loose, scarious sheath 0.2-0.5 mm; blade straight to outwardly curved, green, flat to concave, prominently 1-veined abaxially, narrowly lanceolate to subulate, 5-17 × 0.5-1.5 mm, flexuous, margins not thickened, often scarious, sometimes ciliate or stipitate-glandular, apex purple, apiculate, navicular, shiny to dull, glabrous or stipitate-glandular; axillary leaves often present. Inflorescences 7-25+-flowered, open cymes; bracts subulate to lanceolate, scarious. Pedicels 0.2-1.5 cm, stipitate-glandular. Flowers: hypanthium disc-shaped; sepals prominently 3-veined, ovate to narrowly so (herbaceous portion narrowly ovate to lanceolate), 2.5-3 mm, not enlarging in fruit, apex green to purple, acute to acuminate, not hooded, densely stipitate-glandular; petals obovate, 1.5-2 times as long as sepals, apex rounded, entire. Capsules on stipe ca. 0.1 mm, ovoid, 3-4 mm, longer than sepals. Seeds brown, suborbiculate with radicle prolonged to rounded beak, somewhat compressed, 0.4-0.6 mm, tuberculate; tubercles low, rounded, elongate. 2n = 24.

Flowering spring-summer. Coastal bluffs and forest openings; 0-700 m; B.C.; Oreg., Wash.

Although B. Maguire (1951, 1958) included Minuartia tenella within his concept of Arenaria stricta (M. michauxii), we see little more than a superficial resemblance between the taxa as we circumscribe them.