Montana Field Guide

James Stitchwort is a rhizomatous, perennial herb with weak stems that can easily be detached from the rhizomes; the stems are erect or ascending, 1.5-5 dm tall, and 4-angled with swollen nodes. The upper stem, inflorescence, and often the leaves have small, glandular-tipped hairs, while the lower stems are usually hairless. The leaves are opposite, stalkless, lance-shaped with long tapering, pointed tips, and 2-15 cm long by 1.5-20 mm wide. There are few to many flowers borne on diffuse branches arising from leaf axils and at the top of the plant. The flowers have five pointed sepals which are 3.5-6 mm long, green with pale, membranous margins, and covered with glandular hairs. Each flower also has 5 bilobed, white petals that are about twice as long as the sepals, usually 10 stamens, and a single pistil with usually 3 style branches. The mature fruit is shorter than the sepals and opens by 3 valves.

Collected in flower in July.

S. JAMESIANA is distinguished from other Montana STELLARIA by its 3-valved capsule (others are 6-valved), and by the combination of its densely glandular hairy inflorescence and its leaves which are greater than 4 times as long as they are wide. Differences in the reproductive structure are great enough that this species has been assigned its own genus (PSEUDOSTELLARIA), and it will not key out in many floras using the character of a 3-valved capsule.

Woodland slopes in foothill or montane zones.