Ahart's nailwort

Description

Paronychia ahartii is a species of flowering plant in the family Caryophyllaceae known by the common name Ahart's nailwort. It is endemic to California, where it is known from three counties at the northern edge of the Sacramento Valley where it rises into the southern slopes of the Cascade Range. It is a plant of moist, rocky habitat, such as vernal pools. This is a petite plant producing a nearly invisible stem from a threadlike taproot. The plant is only about a centimeter wide and somewhat spherical in shape. It is a tiny patch of bristle-tipped green leaves a few millimeters in length with oval-shaped stipules. The single flower occurring in each leaf axil has no petals but white, rough-textured, awn-tipped sepals clustered around the leaves. Paronychia is a genus of plants in the family Caryophyllaceae with over 110 species worldwide, mostly from warm-temperate North America, Eurasia, South America and Africa. They are herbs that are annual or biennial or perennial in life span. Some species have a woody base. For the most part they have small, white to yellow-white colored flowers that are often hidden within the paired bracts. The genus Siphonychia has been incorporated into Paronychia by botanists. The common names for some of the species include chickweed, nailwort, and Whitlow-wort. The genus gets its name from the disease of the fingernails which it was once thought to cure. Traditional healers in modern-day use species of this genus to treat kidney stones.