Cerastium vulgare

Mouse Ear Chickweed at Greenway, ACT

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Identification history

Cerastium vulgare	25 Sep 2015	MichaelMulvaney
Cerastium vulgare	20 Sep 2015	MichaelBedingfield
Unidentified	19 Sep 2015	MichaelBedingfield

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User's notes

This is a weed. It is a common small and furry annual, and is abundant at the moment.

4 comments

KenT wrote:

20 Sep 2015

Hi Michael, I suspect you might have a Cerastium sp. If so, then the PlantNET key takes you to Cerastium glomeratum. The ANBG ACT plant census also includes the name Cerastium diffusum for which PlantNET makes no mention, C. diffusium is also not in the USDA species list for this genus - see: http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/html/splist.pl?2285 so I suspect it may not be a valid name.

MichaelBedingfield wrote:

20 Sep 2015

Thanks Ken, I'll make a suggestion of Cerastium vulgare, since it has already been reported locally.

Mike wrote:

21 Sep 2015

Cerastium seems to be exercising people's minds. Richardson, Richardson and Shepherd 'Weeds of the South-East' lists several species including C. diffusum (which is on one of the USDA websites). Atlas of Living Australia gives several ACT records for C. vulgare but few for C. diffusum. The PlantNET key is incomplete.

KenT wrote:

21 Sep 2015

Thanks Mike, the thing that confused me about this genus is that a couple of keys and descriptions indicated that the plants have five petals and in the images I saw for C. diffusum showed four petals so I wondered if it have been placed into a different genus, but no, it just seems to be an exception. Not sure about this one being C. vulgare though as the hairs appear to project past the apex of the sepals as in the PlantNET description for C. glomeratum. Also the inflorescence seems to fit the description of a dense terminal dichasial cyme as in C. glomeratum rather than a ordinary (?) dichasial cyme as with C. vulgare. But I've never tried to take these beyond genus before, so now waiting on someone who knows more about them.

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