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Koenigia islandica
Also called Iceland Purslane, Iceland Koenigia, Island Koenigia
Island purslane is a minute annual herb of cold, wet arctic and alpine ground, among the world's smallest flowering plants at only 1 to 2 cm tall. It is a wild species with no real garden use, and it is not grown as a cultivated plant.
Koenigia islandica, the island knotweed, is a species of annual flowering plant in the buckwheat family, Polygonaceae and is the type species of the genus Koenigia. It is a very small plant and is found growing on wet gravel and scree in arctic tundra and alpine meadows.
Koenigia islandica has a circumboreal arctic/alpine distribution. Its range includes Northern Europe, Central and Northern Asia, North America, Greenland, and Southern Chile and Argentina. It is typically found growing on arctic tundra, on wet scree, on areas of wet gravel, near lakes, pools and streams, on alpine meadows and beside patches of melting snow, at altitudes of up to 4,000 m (13,000 ft). In the United States, it is found in Alaska, Colorado, Montana, Utah and Wyoming. In Britain it is restricted to scattered locations on the Isle of Skye and the Isle of Mull.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Koenigia islandica by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
