Fountain Candy Flower

Montia fontana displays a multitude of forms varying in stature, leaf shape, and seed size. Segregate species, varieties, and subspecies have been named. Based on my study of worldwide collections of the species, much variation in M. fontana is attributable to phenotypic differentiation of ramets produced by local environmental conditions and unrelated to genetic variation. Until macromolecular or other studies shed light on the variation in M. fontana, it seems pointless to recognize infraspecific taxa or segregate species.

Plants annual or biennial, never bulbiferous. Stems prostrate or decumbent, 1-30 cm, freely rooting at nodes, forming mats. Leaves opposite, sessile; blade oblanceolate to rhombic, 2-20 × 0.5-10 mm. Inflorescences leafy. Flowers 1-8, slightly bilateral; sepals 1-1.5 mm; petals 5, connate proximally, white, unequal, 1-2 mm; stamens 3, anther pink or yellow. Seeds 0.7-1.2 mm, tuberculate; elaiosome present. 2n = 20, 40.

Greenland; St. Pierre and Miquelon; B.C., Man., N.B., Nfld. and Labr., N.S., Nunavut, N.W.T., Ont., P.E.I., Que., Yukon; Alaska, Calif., Idaho, Maine, Mass., Mont., Nev., N.H., N.Y., Oreg., Utah, Vt., Wash., Wyo.; Central America; South America; Europe; Asia; Africa; Arctic regions.

Flowering spring.

Pools, springs, meadows, other wet or moist places; 0-3700m.

Claytonia hallii A. Gray; Montia clara Ö. Nilsson; M. funstonii Rydberg; M. hallii (A. Gray) Greene; M. minor C. C. Gmelin

Montia fontana L. Sp. PI. 87. 1753.*
Montia lam pros perma Cham Linnaea 6 565
Montia fontana lamproperrna 1-Vii/l, Ledeb. PI. ROSS. 2 152. 1843.
Annual, yellowish green in drying; stem 8 25 'in long, decumbent, a cending, "i i r. . I , branched; lea vi I ''in long, thi lowei ipatulate, petioled, the petioles dilated at thi the np) li and more oblong; flowei ad terminal, the terminal ra
1 5-flor illarj Bowei often olitai i mm. long; sepala
rinform, I J mm I obovoid, abot 'l" sepal . eeda ,il t I
thi in Europe ■ no* Greenland to Maine; British Columbia to Ala i i; il •■ in irctii and boreal Baropi
-. pi, ,'. I _'. Rbodora 12 pt.si.f.c.
I iteleui II S 1 134,

Montia minor C. C. Gmel. Fl. Bad. 1: 301. 1805.*
Montia fontana minor Schrad. Fl. Germ. 1: 414. 1806.
Montia fontana Cham. Linnaea 6: 565. 1831. Scarcely M. fontana L. 1753.
Annual, in age yelkwish-green; stem 2.5-10 cm. high, glabrous, spreading, branched, decumbent at the base; leaves opposite, the lower spatulate, 5-15 mm. long, the petioles dilated at the base, the upper oblanceolate or linear; flowers axillary and terminal; terminal racemes 3-8-flowered; pedicels 3-15 mm. long, recurved; sepals reniform, 1.5 mm. long; capsule rounded-obovoid, equaling the sepals; seeds 1.3 mm. long, nearly orbicular, black, dull, under a lens strongly and densely muricate with mostly acute tubercles.
Type locality: Baden, Germany.
Distribution: Oregon and California; also in central and southern Europe and central Asia.