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Montia chamissoi
Also called Water Miner's Lettuce, Chamisso's Candyflower, Chamisso's Miner's Lettuce, Chamisso's Montia, Water Montia, Toad Lily, Toadlily
Water minerslettuce is a small, low-growing perennial herb from western North America that grows in moist to wet soil and can float in shallow water. It is grown mainly as a moisture-loving groundcover or edge plant for wet, boggy spots, not as a typical houseplant.
Montia chamissoi is a species of flowering plant in the family Montiaceae known by the common names of water minerslettuce, water montia, Indian lettuce, and toad lily. It is native to much of western North America from Alaska to the southwestern and central United States and also in British Columbia. It grows in moist to wet soils in a variety of habitat types, such as meadows, wetlands, plains, and montanes (Kershaw et al., 1998). It is sometimes aquatic, anchoring in mud and floating in water.
Montia chamissoi is endemic to western North America, with a wide distribution. It appears between 7,000 and 9,000 feet in elevation, in wetlands, montanes, and prairie zones. It occurs in the Rocky Mountain region, Pacific Alaska region, Pacific region, and in part of the mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes region. It is prevalent in Canada, in Alberta and British Columbia. It can also grow on the dry slopes of the plains and foothills. It is found rarely in coastal areas. In Minnesota there is one population occupying about 25 square meters found around a cold water spring, as such it is listed as an endangered species in that state.
White Purslane · Bostock's minerslettuce · Montia calycina · Spreading minerslettuce · Annual water minerslettuce · Howell's minerslettuce · Narrowleaf minerslettuce · Littleleaf minerslettuce · Miner's lettuce
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Montia chamissoi 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.
