Common Name:
SPRING-BEAUTY
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Coefficient of Conservatism:
4
Coefficient of Wetness:
3
Wetness Index:
FACU
Physiognomy:
Nt P-Forb
A. Chartier
Upland beech-maple and oak forests, persisting after clearing (consequently with as unlikely associates as Opuntia on Oceana Co. sands); also in lowland, even mucky forests.
An occasional robust plant may have large cauline leaves only 4–5 times as long as broad, but these are more elliptic or oblong than the characteristic leaf shape of C. caroliniana. Claytonia virginica, much more than C. caroliniana, is very variable in size, from small plants with very narrow linear leaves to large, broad-leaved (to ca. 1 cm wide, but very long) plants up to 20–30 cm tall in some woodlots in southeastern Michigan. Some of this variation may be correlated to the wide variation in chromosome numbers found in this species.