This straggling plant, annual or perennial, grows in muddy ground mainly, favouring damp ditches, streams, and damp ground where it forms low-growing mats. It also can be found in wet gravelly places but it tends to avoid chalky soil. Its leaves are fleshy, in opposite pairs, unlobed and oval, sometimes joined at their base across the fleshy reddishstems. The tiny white 5-petalled flowers have two sepals and are in small clusters. Occasionally the flowers have 4 petals and sometimes these petals can be absent altogether. It flowers from March to October, is a native and found mainly in the north and south of the country. It belongs to the Montiaceae family.
I first found this species growing in a wet ditch at Malin Head, Donegal near Banba’s Crown, in July 2015.
If you are satisfied you have correctly identified this plant, please submit your sighting to the National Biodiversity Data Centre
