Stellaria nitens

Shining chickweed

Family: Caryophyllaceae · Type: annual · Native

Shining chickweed is a California native annual found in northwestern California, the northern Sierra Nevada Forest, Sierra Nevada, Sutter Buttes, San Joaquin Valley, central western, and southwestern California in sand dunes, streambanks, open woodlands, and disturbed areas at elevations below 1,500 meters. Flowering in spring, this plant produces small white to pale flowers in delicate terminal clusters. Growing with ascending to erect stems 3 to 25 centimeters tall, it has a thread-like taproot and appears glabrous or sparsely hairy. Its leaves are distinctive, crowded near the base, with shiny blades 5 to 15 millimeters long, ranging from oblanceolate to obovate at the lower stem and becoming lance-linear toward the top, often with ciliate margins. Seeds are tiny, brown, and less than one millimeter long with minute surface tubercles.

Habitat: Sand dunes, streambanks, open woodland, beneath boulders, disturbed areas

Bloom period: Spring

Elevation: < 1500 m

Bioregions: NW, n&ampc SNF, SNH, ScV (Sutter Buttes), SnJV, CW, SW

California counties: Humboldt, San Bernardino, Kern, San Diego, Orange, Ventura, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Alameda, Tehama, Lake, Madera, Marin, Mariposa, Mendocino, Placer, Riverside, Sacramento, San Joaquin, San Luis Obispo, Siskiyou, Stanislaus, Trinity, Tulare, Tuolumne, San Benito, Amador, Modoc, Sonoma, Contra Costa, Fresno, Napa, Monterey, Nevada, Santa Clara, Shasta, Solano, Sutter, Butte, Calaveras, El Dorado, Plumas, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Colusa, Glenn, Del Norte, Merced, Yolo

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