Narrowleaf Minerslettuce

Montia linearis is a highly uniform species.

Plants annual, not rhizomatous, stoloniferous, or bulbiferous. Stems erect, branched or simple, 2-30 cm. Leaves alternate, erect, not distinctly petiolate, with clasping leaf sheaths; blade linear, 2-60 × 1-4 mm. Inflorescences terminal, 1-bracteate; bract linear to oblanceolate, to 20 × 2 mm. Flowers 2-8; sepals 3-7 mm; petals 5, white, 4-6 mm; stamens 3-5, anther yellow. Seeds 1.2-2.6 mm, tuberculate; elaiosome absent. 2n = 28.

Alta., B.C., Sask.; Ariz., Calif., Colo., Idaho, Miss., Mont., Nev., Oreg., Utah, Wash., Wyo.

Flowering spring.

Dry to moist habitats, coastal and inland valleys to montane, coniferous forests; 0-2500m.

Claytonia linearis Douglas ex Hooker, Fl. Bor.-Amer. 1: 224, plate 71. 1832

Montiastrum lineare (Dougl.) Rydb. Fl. Rocky Mts. 265, 1061 1917.
Clavlonia linearis Dougl.; Hook. FI. Bor. Am. 1: 224. 1832. Montia linaris Greene, Fl. Fran. 181. 1891.
Annual; stem branched, 0.5-3 dm. high, erect, glabrous; leaves alternate, linear-filiform, 2-4 cm. long; bractlet subtending the raceme usually present, short and oblong; racemes terminal at the ends of the branches, secund, lax, elongate, in age sometimes 1 dm. long; pedicels 1-2 cm. long; sepals reniform-orbicular, about 4 mm. long; petals unequal, about 5 mm. long, obovate, white; capsule ovoid, 4 mm. long, the valves scarcely involute; seeds lenticular, orbicular in outline, smooth, microscopically muricate on the rim, 2 mm. in diameter.
Type locality: Great and Little Falls of Columbia River [Washington]. Distribution: British Columbia to western Montana, Nevada, and California.

Montia linearis is a species of flowering plant in the family Montiaceae known by the common names narrowleaf miner's lettuce and narrow-leafed montia. It is native to western North America from British Columbia to California to Utah, where it grows in moist to wet areas in a number of habitat types, including forests and meadows, woodlands and grassland. The plant is also known from some areas of the southeastern United States, including Mississippi.