ERIKA ALIN

Knotted Pearlwort

Sagina nodosa

The knotted pearlwort’s tufts of spikelike leaves stand no taller than my pinkie and could easily be mistaken for grass were it not for the with flowers that reach beyond their margins. One pearlwort I see sports eight branching stems with twenty flowers. Hiding in the axils of tiny pairs of leaves on its upper stems are minuscule sterile shoots or bulbils.1 The bulbils can fall off the stems, take root, and birth new plants. A millimeter in size, their stiff centers are surrounded by claw-like leaf bunches that give the stems a knotty look.2

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In addition to dropping bulbils, the knotted pearlwort can spread from the nodes of stems on the ground, another example of the different reproductive strategies of many arctic-alpine plants.3 In a small button of moss under the plant I see are several bright green specs and fans that resemble upright bulbils when viewed under my hand lens, perhaps future minuscule plantlets revealing life in its tender formative state.