SHOOT MORPHOLOGY IN THE CLAYTONIA SIBIRICA COMPLEX (PORTULACACEAE)

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Claytonia sibirica complex, including C. sibirica and C. palustris, exhibits considerable morphological variation that encompasses ecological diversity over a wide geographic range. Shoots are basically rhizomatous in the complex and least specialized in C. sibirica var. sibirica. Claytonia sibirica var. bulbillifera, a serpentine endemic of southern Oregon and northern California, forms succulent, storage scale leaves distal to its foliage leaves each growing season. These scale leaves, which consist primarily of leaf base, are generally lacking in other members of the sibirica complex and give the shoot systems of C. sibirica var. bulbillifera a bulb morphology. Claytonia palustris, like C. sibirica var. sibirica, forms an apically swollen rhizome, but differs in its habit by forming renewal shoots, born in the axils of the basal leaves, at the ends of plagiotropic, single long internodes.