Sagina nodosa(L.) Fenzl

knotted pearlwort

WFO wfo-0000438470 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Sagina nodosa, photographed by Jon Mortin
fig. a Jon Mortin, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-08-14 / obs. 150691388

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
02225934
Filed as
Sagina nodosa subsp. nodosa
Det. by
D. E. Atha 2013-01-01
Collected
D. E. Atha 2013-08-06
Origin
US
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 49 botanical countries

Regions where Sagina nodosa is native: Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, North Caucasus, West Siberia, Yakutiya, Austria, Baltic States, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Czechia-Slovakia, Denmark, East European Russia, Finland, Føroyar, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Netherlands, North European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, South European Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Alberta, Greenland, Labrador, Maine, Manitoba, Michigan, Minnesota, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Nunavut, Ontario, Prince Edward I., Québec, Saskatchewan IrkutskKrasnoyarskNorth CaucasusWest SiberiaYakutiyaAustriaBaltic StatesBelarusBelgiumBulgariaCentral European RussiaCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkEast European RussiaFinlandFranceGermanyHungaryIcelandIrelandNetherlandsNorth European RussiaNorthwest European RussiaNorwayPolandPortugalRomaniaSouth European RussiaSpainSwedenSwitzerlandAlbertaGreenlandLabradorMaineManitobaMichiganMinnesotaNew BrunswickNewfoundlandNorthwest TerritoriesNova ScotiaNunavutOntarioPrince Edward I.QuébecSaskatchewan Føroyar
Native distribution of Sagina nodosa, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Austria AUT EUROPE
Baltic States BLT
Belarus BLR
Belgium BGM
Bulgaria BUL
Central European Russia RUC
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Denmark DEN
East European Russia RUE
Finland FIN
Føroyar FOR
France FRA
Germany GER
Great Britain GRB
Hungary HUN
Iceland ICE
Ireland IRE
Netherlands NET
North European Russia RUN
Northwest European Russia RUW
Norway NOR
Poland POL
Portugal POR
Romania ROM
South European Russia RUS
Spain SPA
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
Alberta ABT NORTHERN AMERICA
Greenland GNL
Labrador LAB
Maine MAI
Manitoba MAN
Michigan MIC
Minnesota MIN
New Brunswick NBR
Newfoundland NFL
Northwest Territories NWT
Nova Scotia NSC
Nunavut NUN
Ontario ONT
Prince Edward I. PEI
Québec QUE
Saskatchewan SAS
Irkutsk IRK ASIA-TEMPERATE
Krasnoyarsk KRA
North Caucasus NCS
West Siberia WSB
Yakutiya YAK

Not drawn on the map: Great Britain. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 124 in flower of 129 examined

Proportion of examined Sagina nodosa in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 0 0 too few examined
Feb 0 0 too few examined
Mar 0 0 too few examined
Apr 0 0 too few examined
May 1 1 too few examined
Jun 9 11 82% 52% to 95%
Jul 70 71 99% 92% to 100%
Aug 31 32 97% 84% to 99%
Sep 10 10 100% 72% to 100%
Oct 3 4 too few examined
Nov 0 0 too few examined
Dec 0 0 too few examined

Peak flowering in Sep. Each bar is the share of Sagina nodosa observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 124 of 129 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 8 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 834 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -17.9 °C -8.3 °C 3.8 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 14.4 °C 18.7 °C 22.9 °C
Annual rainfall 584 mm 821 mm 1,739 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 92 mm 137 mm 327 mm

It is found where winters are severely cold. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 834 research-grade observations of Sagina nodosa that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 15 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Alsine nodosa (L.) Crantz
  • Alsinella nodosa (L.) Bubani
  • Arenaria nodosa (L.) Wallr.
  • Moehringia nodosa [Clairv.]
  • Phaloe nodosa (L.) Dumort.
  • Sagina glandulifera (Schur) Nyman
  • Sagina glandulosa (Besser) Nyman
  • Sagina laxa Bonnier
  • Sagina nodosa f. nodosa
  • Sagina nodosa var. borealis (G.E.Crow) Cronquist
  • Sagina nodosa var. nodosa
  • Sagina nodosa var. pubescens (Mert. & W.D.J.Koch) W.D.J.Koch
  • Spergella nodosa (L.) Rchb.
  • Spergula nodosa L.
  • Stellaria nodosa (L.) Scop.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.