Plant of the day is: Minuartia verna or Irish moss
Plant of the day WAS going to be Minuartia langii but there is a lot less information out there about it and NO easily found creative common usage images, which is lame. I'll be taking photos of it and making them available for the masses soon. Everyone should be able to see/use images of plants by golly. For me, M. langii is the more attractive/robust of the two, you decide. Let me Google those images for you.
Taxonomy, etc.: Another member of the Caryophyllaceae family. If I'm being honest, I kind of have a soft spot for the family, some really great looking flowers and plants that grow in some rough soils. The genus Minuartia is named after J. Minuart, a Spanish botanist and pharmacist. I love the historical trend of physicians/people in and around medicine also being botanists. The plants of this genus are typically referred to as the "sandworts". Several species in Minuartia were formerly in Arenaria and Alsine. The genus is the second largest in the family in North America, very likely there is one near you. Minuartia patula or Pitcher's stitchwort. There you go...sally forth and find it!
Flora of North America has an excellent botanical description of the genus that makes my head spin still. Must study more. It's a big genus, 144+ species at least. A bit of a botanical hotbed for classification. M. langii wasn't even listed as resolved in theplantlist.org
Description: A small cushion-forming perennial, likes slag, exposed soils, bare scree, limestone, and basaltic or serpentine soils. It really rocks. It of course has the typical 5 petal look of the family but also has 10 very distinctive red/purple anthers that subtly stand out against the white petals. Leaves are very narrow almost needle like (they remind me a bit of a diet-Phlox) and opposite. (Just found a an error in a published article's abstract in the first sentence...ahhh...a good day).
Range: Found throughout northern areas of Britain and in Scotland, it is also in Ireland and found in the Burren and Aran Islands. Called Spring Sandwort from a decidedly Irish website.
Propagation/Cultivation: Germinates VERY well without any pre-treatment of the seed. Seed is very small and easily sown in large numbers. Mist bench germination works well but I would think many other standard forms of germination would work as well in temps from 15-20C (yeah, I'm evil, metric system people, it's a thing). Should be in a VERY well drained mix and allowed to dry out between waterings. A grit/rock topdress will help keep the algae funk at bay if overwatered a bit. A fairly forgiving plant though, all things said.
Don't feel obligated to thin the seedlings, they grow quite happily in clumps together and individual plants are rather ...fragile. If thinning, I'd recommend letting the clump of seedlings grow up quite a bit first.
public domain painted by Jacob Sturm
Great detail. Love it.
Random fun facts: A hyper accumulator of copper and zinc in their leaves. Considerable amounts of Fe, Cu, Zn, and Al have been found on leaf surfaces that were secreted by hydrathodes (a cool thing...look it up). Possibly a good plant for phytoremediation of certain sites...hmmm.
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