Dwarf Candy Flower

Plants annual, not rhizomatous, stoloniferous, or bulbiferous. Stems erect, branched, 1-10 cm. Leaves alternate, erect, not distinctly petiolate, with clasping leaf sheaths; blade linear, 5-50 × 0.5-2 mm. Inflorescences terminal, 1-bracteate; bract linear to oblanceolate, 1-6 mm. Flowers 4-12; sepals 1.5-2.5 mm; petals 5, white, 1.5-3 mm; stamens 3, anther yellow. Seeds 0.8-1.2 mm, tuberculate; elaiosome absent. 2n = 14.

B.C.; Calif., Idaho, Oreg., Wash.

Flowering spring.

Moist or transitional wetland habitat in coastal and inland valleys; 800-1600m.

Claytonia dichotoma Nuttall in J. Torrey and A. Gray, Fl. N. Amer. 1: 202. 1838; Montiastrum dichotomum (Nuttall) Rydberg

Montiastrum dichotomum (Nutt.) Rydberg
Claylonia dicholoma Nutt.; T. & G. Fl. N. Am. 1: 202. 1838. Montia dicholoma Howell. Erythea 1: 36. 1893.
Annual; stem 2-5 cm. high, sparingly branched; leaves alternate, filiform, sheathing at the base, 1-2 mm. long; bractlet at the base of the lowest pedicel usually present, 2 mm. long, lanceolate; racemes 1-2 cm. long, nodding, at the ends of the branches; pedicels 1-2 mm. long, recurved; sepals rounded-ovate, scarcely 2 mm. long; petals scarcely exceeding the sepals, emarginate; capsule 2 mm. long; seeds lenticular, orbicular, smooth, black, 1 mm. long.
Type locality: Rocks near junction of Willamette River, Oregon. Distribution: Washington to northern California.