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Sagina saginoides
Also called Alpine Pearlwort
Arctic pearlwort is a tiny, tufted alpine perennial from cold northern mountains and tundra, grown mainly by rock gardeners and alpine enthusiasts. It needs cool summers, gritty well-drained soil, and full sun to part shade.
Sagina saginoides is a species of flowering plant in the family Caryophyllaceae known by the common names arctic pearlwort or alpine pearlwort. It has a circumboreal distribution; it can be found throughout the northern latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. It grows in subalpine and alpine climates and other mountainous habitat at lower elevations. This is a small perennial herb producing a slender to threadlike stem just a few centimetres long, growing decumbent or erect. It is sometimes clumpy in form. The leaves are linear in shape and about 1 to 2 centimetres in length. The inflorescence is a solitary flower with five sepals and five small white petals.
The alpine pearlwort has a circumboreal distribution; it can be found throughout the northern latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere and mountainous regions further south. It is found in short turf in thin soils on fell tundra, under snowdrifts, in melt-water wetlands, on ledges on rock faces, rocky banks, meagre pastures, roadside banks and bare ground. During the winter its dwarf stature and covering of snow protect it from the worst of the winds and low temperatures.
Annual pearlwort · Trailing pearlwort · Sea pearlwort · Stickystem pearlwort · Knotted pearlwort · Sagina pilifera · Procumbent Pearlwort · Sagina stridii · Awl-leaf pearlwort · Pearlwort
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Sagina saginoides 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.
