Flora of New Zealand Series

Annual. Stems erect, often purplish, glabrous or with sparse glandular hairs above, 5-15 cm tall. Lvs distant, linear-subulate, 3-nerved at base, 3-12 × 1-1.5 mm, glabrous or with glandular hairs; hyaline margins expanded at base and connate. Infl. lax, glandular-hairy; bracts leaflike. Sepals leaflike with broad scarious margins at base, glandular-hairy, 2.5-3.5 mm long. Petals white, entire, 2-2.5 mm long, conspicuously < sepals. Stamens 5-10. Capsule narrowly ovoid, < to almost = calyx. Seeds pale reddish brown, very finely tuberculate, 0.25-0.3 mm long.

N.: collected once, from Whitianga, Coromandel in 1953; S.: C. Otago.

Mediterranean, S. Russia, S.W. Asia 1957

Roadsides and stony terraces.

M. hybrida has also been known in N.Z. as Alsine tenuifolia and M. tenuifolia.