Plants annual; taproot slender. Stems straggling to ascending, branched, square, 10-25 cm, glabrous. Leaves sessile; blade with obscure midrib, narrowly oblanceolate to linear-spatulate, 1-3 cm × 0.8-4 mm, somewhat fleshy, base cuneate, margins entire, apex ± acute, glabrous. Inflorescences with flowers solitary in distal leaf axils; bracts absent. Pedicels ascending or erect, 10-40 mm, glabrous. Flowers 2.5-4 mm diam.; sepals 4(-5), 3-veined, ovate-lanceolate, 2.5-3 mm, margins narrow, scarious, apex ± acute, glabrous; petals absent; stamens 4(-5), shorter than sepals; styles 3 or 4, ascending, ca. 0.5 mm. Capsules green or straw colored, ovoid, ca. 3 mm, ± equaling sepals, apex obtuse, opening to base into 3 or 4 valves; carpophore absent. Seeds dark red-brown, orbiculate-reniform, 0.6 × 0.8 mm, shiny, tuberculate; tubercles prominent, stalked and knoblike.

Flowering spring. Seasonally wet, rocky openings in wooded glades, on wet cliffs; 400-500 m; Ky., Tenn.

Stellaria fontinalis is a very rare and poorly known species of uncertain affinity. Its characters are closer to Sagina and Minuartia than Stellaria, in particular the absence of petals, the 4(-5)-merous flowers, and the distinctive sculpturing of the seeds.

Delicate, glabrous perennial; stems ascending, 10-15 cm; lvs narrowly oblanceolate to linear, 1-2 cm נ1-2 mm, acutish, somewhat fleshy; fls solitary, tetramerous, appearing lateral; lvs reduced upwards, becoming bract-like but not scarious; pedicels subcapillary, 1-2.5 cm, ascending or erect; sep 4, 2.5-3.5 mm, strongly 3-nerved; pet none; stamens 4; styles 4, 0.5 mm; fr ovoid, slightly exceeding the sep, dehiscent to the base by 4 valves; seeds 0.6 mm, orbicular-reniform, shining, minutely papillate. Wet cliffs; Lexington, Ky., and Nashville, Tenn. (Alsine f.; Arenaria f.; Stellaria f.)

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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