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Stellaria
media (L.) Vill.
Standardized Common
Name: Chickweed
Other Common Names: Common Chickweed,
Starweed
Family: Caryophyllaceae
Taxonomy: Stellaria is
a cosmopolitan genus of about 200 species, which are often weedy. Stellaria
media occurs as a weed almost worldwide; it is probably of European origin,
but is thoroughly naturalized in North America and elsewhere.
Description: Annual creeping
herb. Stems prostrate or weakly ascending, rooting at nodes, narrow, pubescent
in lines. Leaves mostly opposite, the lower petiolate with rounded bases, the
upper sessile with bases ranging from attenuate to cordate; blade ovate,
0.5–3(–6) cm long, 0.3–2(–3) cm broad; apex acute to acuminate; margins entire.
Flowers small, variable; sepals 4–5, ovate, 3–7 mm long, often pubescent;
petals 4–5 or absent, deeply bifid, white, 2–6 mm long; stamens 3–10; ovary
1-locular, styles 3(–4). Fruit a capsule, 1-locular, ovoid, opening by 6
valves; seeds 0.8–1.5 mm long, dark reddish brown, bearing small warty protrusions.
Parts
in Commerce:
Whole herb
Identification:
Stems
- Weak,
cylindrical; not 4-angled
- Upper part
usually pubescent with hairs growing in 1(–2) longitudinal lines, rarely
glabrous
- European
material rarely has upper part or all of stem glandular-pubescent
throughout; American material never does
Leaves
- Leaves mostly
opposite, the lower petiolate with rounded bases, the upper sessile with
variable bases; petioles often bear small hairs growing in lines
- Blade ovate, not
linear or lanceolate, 0.5–3 cm long (very rarely to 6 cm)
- Apex acute to
acuminate
- Margins may be
ciliate, otherwise glabrous
- Taste weak
Flowers
- Growing singly
in leaf axils or in short, bracteate cymes; bracts leaflike, not dry
- Pedicels with
hairs growing in lines
- Sepals 4–5, 3–7
mm long, ovate, 3-veined, with dry margins, often pubescent at base with
long soft hairs
- Petals 4–5,
white, 2–6 mm long, cleft almost to base, or petals absent; petals never
much longer than sepals
- Stamens 3–10
- Styles 3; not 5
nor 1
- Mature fruit an
ovoid capsule, at least as long as calyx; not an elongated linear capsule,
nor opening by a lid
References:
Chater AO, Heywood VH. Stellaria. In: Tutin TG, Heywood VH, Burges NA, et al.,
eds. Flora Europaea. 2nd ed., vol. 1. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press; 1993:161–164.
Fernald ML. Gray’s Manual of Botany, 8th ed. New York: American Book
Company; 1950:621–624.
Mohlenbrock RH. The Illustrated Flora of
Illinois. Flowering Plants: Pokeweeds, Four O’Clocks, Carpetweeds, Cacti,
Purslanes, Goosefoots, Pigweeds, and Vinks. Carbondale, IL: Southern
Illinois University Press; 2001.
Radford AE, Ahles HE, Bell CR. Manual of the
Vascular Flora of the Carolinas. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North
Carolina Press; 1968.
Scholte GAM. Biosystematic studies on the collective
species Stellaria media (L.) Vill. Proc Kon Ned Akad Wetensch, C.
1978;81:442–456 and 457–465.
Sobey DG. Biological flora of the British Isles. No.
150. Stellaria media (L.) Vill. J Ecol. 1981;69:311–335.
Figure 71: a–d, Stellaria media habit, flowering node,
seed and flower.
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