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Stellaria borealis
Also called Boreal Stitchwort, Northern Stitchwort
Stellaria borealis is a species of flowering plant in the family Caryophyllaceae known by the common name boreal starwort. It has a circumboreal distribution, occurring throughout northern areas of the Northern Hemisphere. It occurs in many types of moist and wet habitat, including marshes, riverbanks, lakesides, floodplains, talus, ditches, and moist spots in forests and woodlands. It is quite variable in appearance, especially across subspecies. In general, it is a rhizomatous perennial herb forming mats of branching, four-angled stems lined with lance-shaped leaves a few centimeters in length. The inflorescence bears many flowers each with five deeply lobed white petals. Some flowers lack petals and have only the five pointed green sepals.
This plant is sometimes infected with the smut fungus Microbotryum violaceum (Microbotyrum stellariae), which causes its anthers to turn red.
Bog chickweed · Stellaria apetala · Giant Chickweed · Northern starwort · Tennessee starwort · Fleshy starwort · Curled starwort · Stellaria cupaniana · Stellaria flaccida · Grass-like starwort · Saltmarsh starwort · Beach starwort
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Stellaria borealis by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
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.
