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Arenaria

(Genus)

Overview

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Herbs annual or perennial, rarely biennial. Stems erect or rarely creeping, often caespitose or pulvinate. Leaves opposite, rarely whorled; leaf blade linear to elliptic, ovate, or orbicular, usually flat, margin entire. Flowers solitary or numerous in cymes, actinomorphic. Sepals 4 or 5, apex entire, rarely emarginate. Petals 4 or 5, sometimes absent, apex entire to toothed, 2-cleft, or fimbriate. Stamens (2--5 or 8 or) 10. Ovary 1-loculed; ovules numerous. Styles 2 or 3(--5) . Capsule ovoid, obovoid, or globose, usually shorter than persistent sepals, rarely equaling or longer than them, 3- or 6-valved. Seeds reniform or subovoid, flattened, smooth, tuberculate, or narrowly winged.

More than 300 species: N temperate to arctic regions; 102 species (79 endemic) in China.

Arenaria has been subdivided into ten subgenera, several of which were further divided into sections and series (McNeill, Notes Roy. Bot. Gard. Edinburgh 24: 79 155. 1962) . Six subgenera are represented in China, one of which ( A. subgen. Odontostemma ) contains more than half the species.

[1]

Photos

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Taxonomy

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The Genus Arenaria is further organized into finer groupings including:

Footnotes

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  1. Dequan Lu, Zhengyi Wu, Lihua Zhou, Shilong Chen, Michael G. Gilbert, Magnus Lidén, John McNeill, John K. Morton, Bengt Oxelman, Richard K. Rabeler, Mats Thulin, Nicholas J. Turland & Warren L. Wagner "Arenaria". in Flora of China Vol. 6 Page 40. Published by Science Press (Beijing) and Missouri Botanical Garden Press. Online at EFloras.org.

Sources

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Last Revised: September 22, 2008