Eastwood'S Sandwort

Description

Arenaria is a genus of flowering plants, within the family Caryophyllaceae. Species of this genus are among those plants commonly known as "sandworts" Several species formerly classified within Arenaria are now classed in the genera Spergularia, Eremogone and Minuartia." Plants densely matted, green, not glaucous, with woody base. Stems erect, (8–)10–25 cm, glabrous or stipitate-glandular. Leaves: basal leaves persistent; cauline leaves usually in 2–4 pairs, reduced distally; basal blades spreading to recurved, needlelike, 1–3(–3.5) cm × 0.5–0.7 mm, flexuous to rigid, herbaceous, apex spinose, glabrous to puberulent, not glaucous. Inflorescences (1–)3–17-flowered, ± open cymes. Pedicels 3–30 mm, glabrous or stipitate-glandular. Flowers: sepals green or purplish, 1–3-veined, lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, (3.5–)4–6.5 mm, not enlarging in fruit, margins broad, apex narrowly acute to acuminate, glabrous or stipitate-glandular; petals yellowish white or sometimes brownish to reddish pink, broadly oblong-elliptic to oblanceolate, 4–6.5 mm, 0.9–1.1 times as long as sepals, apex rounded; nectaries narrowly longitudinally rectangular, apically cleft or emarginate, adjacent to filaments opposite sepals, 1–2 mm. Capsules 4–6 mm, glabrous. Seeds brown, ovoid to suborbicular with hilar notch, 1.2–1.7 mm, papillate, subechinate; tubercles conical.