Minuartia rubella
Encyclopedia
Minuartia rubella is a species of flowering plant in the pink family
known by several common names, including beautiful sandwort, Arctic sandwort, and boreal stitchwort. It has a circumboreal distribution
, occurring throughout the northernmost Northern Hemisphere from the Arctic Circle
on the Arctic tundra
into the alpine climate
s of mountainous areas in temperate Eurasia and North America. It grows in rocky, moist, often barren habitat, including gravelly, sparsely vegetated slopes with little organic matter. It is a calciphile
, growing in calcareous
substrates such as soils rich in decomposed limestone
.
This is a small, mat-forming perennial herb growing in a low, tight clump of hairy, glandular herbage. The green, three-veined leaves are needlelike or flattened, no more than a centimeter long and a millimeter wide. The plant blooms in summer with tiny flowers made up of pointed sepal
s under 4 millimeters long and five white petals roughly the same length or slightly smaller.
Caryophyllaceae
The Caryophyllaceae, commonly called the pink family or carnation family, is a family of flowering plants. It is included in the dicotyledon order Caryophyllales in the APG III system, alongside 33 other families, including Amaranthaceae, Cactaceae and Polygonaceae...
known by several common names, including beautiful sandwort, Arctic sandwort, and boreal stitchwort. It has a circumboreal distribution
Circumboreal Region
The Circumboreal Region is a floristic region within the Holarctic Kingdom in Eurasia and North America, as delineated by such geobotanists as Josias Braun-Blanquet and Armen Takhtajan....
, occurring throughout the northernmost Northern Hemisphere from the Arctic Circle
Arctic Circle
The Arctic Circle is one of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of the Earth. For Epoch 2011, it is the parallel of latitude that runs north of the Equator....
on the Arctic tundra
Tundra
In physical geography, tundra is a biome where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons. The term tundra comes through Russian тундра from the Kildin Sami word tūndâr "uplands," "treeless mountain tract." There are three types of tundra: Arctic tundra, alpine...
into the alpine climate
Alpine climate
Alpine climate is the average weather for a region above the tree line. This climate is also referred to as mountain climate or highland climate....
s of mountainous areas in temperate Eurasia and North America. It grows in rocky, moist, often barren habitat, including gravelly, sparsely vegetated slopes with little organic matter. It is a calciphile
Calcicole
A calcicole or calciphyte is a plant that does not tolerate acidic soil. The word is derived from the Latin 'to dwell on chalk'. Under acidic conditions, aluminium becomes more soluble and phosphate-less. As a consequence, calcicoles grown on acidic soils often develop the symptoms of aluminium...
, growing in calcareous
Calcareous
Calcareous is an adjective meaning mostly or partly composed of calcium carbonate, in other words, containing lime or being chalky. The term is used in a wide variety of scientific disciplines.-In zoology:...
substrates such as soils rich in decomposed limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
.
This is a small, mat-forming perennial herb growing in a low, tight clump of hairy, glandular herbage. The green, three-veined leaves are needlelike or flattened, no more than a centimeter long and a millimeter wide. The plant blooms in summer with tiny flowers made up of pointed sepal
Sepal
A sepal is a part of the flower of angiosperms . Collectively the sepals form the calyx, which is the outermost whorl of parts that form a flower. Usually green, sepals have the typical function of protecting the petals when the flower is in bud...
s under 4 millimeters long and five white petals roughly the same length or slightly smaller.