''Montia'' is a genus of plants in the family
Montiaceae
Montiaceae are a family of flowering plants, comprising about 14 genera with about 230 known species, ranging from small herbaceous plants to shrubs. The family has a cosmopolitan distribution.
The family Montiaceae was newly adopted in the APG ...
. Species in this genus are known generally as miner's lettuce or water chickweed. All of the species in the genus have edible leaves. It is found worldwide, except in Asia.
Montias are known from fossilized seeds recovered from sediments of the Pleistocene Tomales Formation and from a small paleoflora at
San Bruno
San Bruno (Spanish for " St. Bruno") is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States, incorporated in 1914. The population was 43,908 at the 2020 United States Census. The city is between South San Francisco and Millbrae, adjacent to ...
. Further, Daniel Axelrod discussed ''Montia howellii'' as one of the biogeographically significant species comprising the Millerton paleoflora at Tomales.
The genus name of ''Montia'' is in honour of
Giuseppe Monti (1682–1760), an Italian chemist and botanist. It was first described and published in
Sp. Pl. on page 87 in 1753.
''Montia perfoliata'', now ''
Claytonia perfoliata
''Claytonia perfoliata'' ( syn. ''Montia perfoliata''), also known as miner's lettuce, Indian lettuce, winter purslane, or ''palsingat'' (Cahuilla), is a flowering plant in the family Montiaceae. It is an edible, fleshy, herbaceous, annual plant ...
'', the species for which the term miner's lettuce was coined, is distributed throughout the Mountain West of North America in moist soils and prefers areas which have been recently disturbed. The species got its name due to its use as a fresh salad green by miners in the 1849
California Gold Rush.
[Edible and Medicinal plants of the West, Gregory L. Tilford, ]
Selected species:
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Montia australasica'' - white purslane
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Montia bostockii'' - Bostock's miner's lettuce
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Montia chamissoi'' - water miner's lettuce, toadlily
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Montia dichotoma'' - dwarf miner's lettuce
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Montia diffusa'' - spreading miner's lettuce, branching montia
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Montia fontana'' - annual water miner's lettuce, water-blinks
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Montia howellii
''Montia howellii'' is a species of flowering plant in the family Montiaceae known by the common names Howell's miner's lettuce and Howell's montia. It is native to western North America from British Columbia to northern California, where it grow ...
'' - Howell's miner's lettuce
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Montia linearis'' - narrowleaf miner's lettuce
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Montia parvifolia'' - littleleaf miner's lettuce
File:Montia fontana mofo 005 php.jpg, ''Montia fontana''
File:Montia chamissoi.jpg, ''Montia chamissoi''
References
External links
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Caryophyllales genera
Plants described in 1753
{{Caryophyllales-stub