Variety:
Common Name: bigleaf sandwort, largeleaf sandwort
Species Code: MOMA3, ARMA18
Origin: Native to dry to moist, open to shaded, usually forested areas of northern North America, scattered in other mountainous areas further south in the US.
Rare: no
Form: forb; prostrate, deciduous perennial, 5-15 cm tall, with extensive slender rhizomes, forming matted patches, stems ascending to erect, with minute hairs.
Duration: perennial
Longevity:
Habitat Type: dry forest
Wetland Indicator Status: not listed
Leaves: Opposite, entire, pointed, linear-elliptic to lanceolate, sessile or subsessile, 2-5 cm long.
Mature height: 2-6 inches tall
Flowers: 1-5, borne singly in terminal cymes; dimorphous, functionally dioecious; male flowers with 5 petals much longer than the 5 sepals, female flowers with the 5 sepals longer than the 5 petals.
Flower color: white
Bloom: May, June
Bloom starts on: May
Bloom ends on: June
Fruit: capsule, globose-ovoid; seed shiny, black, reniform, 1.5 mm long, elaiosome present.
Vegetation type:
Characteristics:
Most taxonomists now place A. macrophylla in Moehringia based on the presence of an elaiosome and a base chromosome number of x=12 (Flora of North America Editorial Committee 1993+).
Moehringia macrophylla Piper & Beattie 1914.
Reproduces both sexually by seed and vegetatively from rhizomes.
x=12.
2n=48 (Baldwin et al 2004, Flora of North America Editorial Committee 1993+).
The species is a tetraploid.
Seeds are ant dispersed. They have an elaiosome that attracts ants (Baldwin et al 2004). The ants carry the seeds to their nest where they eat the elaiosome and leave the seed.
Comments:
Sun requirement: partial shade
Soil moisture: mesic
Precipitation:
Fire:
Hazards:
Sowing time: No information is available.
Transplant time: No information is available.
Stratification: No information is available.
Seed yield: No information is available.
Seed harvest:
Seed first harvest: No information is available.
Seed cleaning: No information is available.
Planting duration: No information is available.
Seed insect problem:
Seed shatter:
Seed size:
Seed harvest date: No information is available.
Seed comments:
Key words:
Alternate Genus: Moehringia
Alternate Species:
Alternate Variety:
Propagation:
No information on seed propagation is available. Vegetative propagation by rhizomes or divisions should be possible.
Notes:
References:
Baldwin, B.G., S. Boyd, B.J. Ertter, D.J. Keil, R.W. Patterson, T.J. Rosatti, and D.H. Wilken (eds). 2004. Jepson Online Interchange for California Floristics. University and Jepson Herbaria, University of California, Berkeley, CA. Accessed 7/22/09 online at http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/interchange.html
Flora of North America Editorial Committee, eds. 1993+. Flora of North America North of Mexico. 7+ vols. New York and Oxford. Oxford University Press. Online at http://www.fna.org/FNA/
Piper, C.V., and R.K. Beattie. 1914. The Flora of Southeastern Washington and Adjacent Idaho. Lancaster, PA: Press of the New Era Printing Company. 296 pp.