Montia parvifolia

Littleleaf minerslettuce

Family: Montiaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Littleleaf minerslettuce is a California native perennial found in northwestern California, the Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada, central coastal California, and San Francisco Bay Area in moist, rocky slopes, cliffs, creek banks, and forest habitats at elevations below 2,600 meters. Flowering from May to July, this plant produces delicate pink or white flowers in small terminal clusters of 1 to 12 blossoms. Growing with creeping, branched stolons 5 to 40 centimeters tall that form dense, matted patches, the stems become erect with age and are densely leafy. Its basal leaves are fleshy, ranging from narrowly oblanceolate to widely ovate and 15 to 60 millimeters long, with smaller alternate leaves along the stolons that often have easily detached bulblets in their axils. The fruit is small, measuring 2 to 3 millimeters long with seeds approximately 1 to 1.5 millimeters in size.

Habitat: Moist, rocky slopes, cliffs, creek banks, forest

Bloom period: May-Jul

Elevation: < 2600 m

Bioregions: NW, CaR, SN, CCo, SnFrB

California counties: Sierra, Santa Cruz, Amador, Humboldt, Butte, Del Norte, Fresno, Mariposa, Mendocino, Nevada, Placer, San Mateo, Siskiyou, Trinity, Tulare, El Dorado, Marin, Alpine, Calaveras, Madera, Shasta, Tuolumne, Yolo, Monterey, Plumas, Tehama, Sonoma, Santa Clara, San Benito

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.