The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Montia fontana
Also called Blinks, Water Blinks, Fountain Miner's Lettuce, Annual Water Miner's Lettuce, Blinking Chickweed, Fountain Candyflower, Water Chickweed
Annual water miner's lettuce (Montia fontana), a small succulent herb of the Montiaceae family that grows in freshwater springs, streams and seasonally damp ground. The key to growing it is keeping its soil or edges consistently moist.
Montia fontana, blinks is a herbaceous annual to perennial plant that grows in freshwater springs in upland regions, and in seasonally damp acid grassland in the lowlands. It is widespread throughout the world, except in southern Asia. It is rather variable in morphology, which is reflected in a complex history of taxonomy. Currently, there are three accepted subspecies which are defined largely by the appearance of the seedcoat. It is edible and consumed as a salad in some areas, but is otherwise of minimal economic impact. Because of its association with clean water habitats, it is often viewed as a species of conservation value.
Blinks has an almost world-wide distribution, and it is considered a native species in most places, and in all continents except Antarctica. It is apparently considered an introduction only in Venezuela and the Falkland Islands, and it is absent only from southern Asia.
Blinks is edible and is gathered in the wild and used as a salad vegetable in Spain and Portugal, but it is not currently cultivated. It is high in fibre and is a rich source of omega-3 fatty acids.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Montia fontana 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.
