General: Biennial or more usually perennial (sometimes flowering the first year) herb from a taproot and slender branching stem-base; forming mats to 20 cm wide; stems decumbent to ascending, several, simple to few-branched, glabrous, 1-12 cm tall/long.
Leaves: Basal leaves in rosettes, linear, abruptly sharp-pointed, 4-20 mm long, less than 1 mm wide, 1-nerved, glabrous; stem leaves opposite, 2-6 pairs, linear, mostly 3-8 mm long, sometimes with secondary clusters of axillary leaves; stipules lacking.
Flowers: Inflorescence of erect, solitary, terminal or lateral flowers; petals 5, white, rounded, stalklike at the base, 1-1.5 mm long; sepals usually 5 or sometimes 4, greenish with a white margin, egg-shaped, 1.5-2 mm long, appressed or at least loosely appressed at time of capsules opening.
Fruits: Capsules egg-shaped, 2.5-3 mm long, 4- to 5-valved; seeds 0.2-0.4 mm long, reddish-brown, not shiny.
Wet to moist pond margins, mud flats, streamsides and meadows from the subalpine to alpine zones; common in S BC, infrequent northward; N to AK, YT and NT, E to PQ and S to NM, AZ, CA and MX.
The table below shows the species-specific information calculated from original data (BEC database) provided by the BC Ministry of Forests and Range. (Updated August, 2013)
