Montia

Montia is a genus of plants in the family Montiaceae. Species in this genus are known generally as miner's lettuce or water chickweed. All of the species in the genus have edible leaves.[1]

Montia
Montia fontana
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Order: Caryophyllales
Family: Montiaceae
Genus: Montia
L.
Species

about 12, see text

Montias are known from fossilized seeds recovered from sediments of the Pleistocene Tomales Formation and from a small paleoflora at San Bruno.[2][3] Further, Daniel Axelrod discussed Montia howellii as one of the biogeographically significant species comprising the Millerton paleoflora at Tomales.[4]

Montia perfoliata, now Claytonia perfoliata, 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.[5]

Selected species:

  • Montia fontana
  • Montia chamissoi

References
  1. Whitney, Stephen (1985). Western Forests (The Audubon Society Nature Guides). New York: Knopf. p. 545. ISBN 0-394-73127-1.
  2. Mason, Herbert L. 1932. Pleistocene Flora from San Bruno. Carnegie Institute of Washington Publication No. 415, pages 25-44
  3. Mason, Herbert L. 1934. Pleistocene Flora from the Tomales Formation. Carnegie Institute of Washington Publication No. 415, pages 81-179.
  4. Axelrod, D. I. 1983. New Pleistocene Conifer Records, Coastal California. University of California Publications Geological Sciences Volume 127. Berkeley: University of California Press, 31 pp ISBN 0-520-09707-6
  5. Edible and Medicinal plants of the West, Gregory L. Tilford, ISBN 0-87842-359-1


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