|
May 15, 2012
|
Southeastern, New Hampshire
|
This quick identification owes much thanks to the
XID Services Expert Identification Software.
When I have no idea what genus the plant is in, I often use this software to help
quickly identify the genus and sometimes species rather than flipping through pictures
in field guides and online references. I may be successful with this software in only
20-30% of the plants I look up (since the software only contains 1,000 broadleaf weeds),
but in those cases, it saves me hours. In this case, I marked the following attributes
in the software and three possibilities where returned:
- Flower purple or pink
- Leaf length 5 - 20 mm
- Leaf width < 1 mm
- Location: New Hampshire
Once the three possibilities were returned, I looked at the pictures and determined
that it was either Spergularia rubra or a similar species. I then went to
the botanical guide by Arthur Haines,
Flora
Novae Angliae: A Manual for the Identification of Native and Naturalized
Higher Vascular Plants of New England, to confirm the species.
Spergularia rubra is differentiated from other Spergularia species in
New England by:
- 6-10 stamen per flower
- Evident fascicle of leaves in each axil.
- Seeds 0.4 to 0.6 mm long
- Found in fields, roadsides, lawns (and not coastal beaches and marshes)
|
|
