Spergularia salina (Sand Spurry) - photos and description
Looking
straight down on plant
Foliage has glandular hairs.
General: Low, much-branched annual, can be
mat-forming. Foliage sticky with glandular hairs.
Because of it's small size, and the white (saline) soil as a background, I
found this to be a difficult plant to photograph.
Flowers: Flowers numerous in small cymes, violet, we measured a flower at 5 mm diameter. Sepals > petals. Sepal measured at 3 mm long.
Leaves: Leaves opposite, succulent, linear, round in profile, leaf measured at 25 mm long by 2 mm wide.
Height: Height is listed in Budd's Flora to 20 cm, we measured plants from only 4 to 7 cm tall.
Habitat: Alkali soils on the margins of sloughs and marshes.
Abundance: Common, ranked as an S5 by the Saskatchewan Conservation Data Centre, uncommon to rare in our experience.
Origin: Native.
When and where photographed: Above photos taken June 23rd and June 24th, saline edge of small lake in pasture, about 100 km west of our home in Regina, SK.